


The Niwatoko Timeline

by Rajani_the_Freak



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Naruto
Genre: (more to be added as I go), Hermione saves Harry (with research) once more, Ninja baffle ninja?, Ninjas baffle Wizzards, Ron dies in prologue (technically not a spoiler), What if breaking the Elder Wand had reprecursions?, Wizzards baffle Ninjas, daddy/olderbrother!Harry, depressed!Harry (initially), dunno, everyone if baffled by one another, harry raises naruto, he'd be lost if she didn't know stuff and found ways for him to also know stuff, like really, protective!harry, toddler Naruto is cute AF
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-29
Updated: 2019-03-22
Packaged: 2019-08-09 12:58:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 34,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16450403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rajani_the_Freak/pseuds/Rajani_the_Freak
Summary: Things have been weird around Konoha lately. A massive weird chakra explosion just outside the village that had the ANBU teams scrambling for clues, strange big coins made of massive gold show up in pawnshops that the owners didn't remember having bought...(or what happens when you decide to break a powerful magical object with little tought)(PS: I suck at summaries)





	1. Prologue: Three Shades

**Author's Note:**

> I hope to get some reviews for this soon since I'm still not completely sure on how the concept will be received. Feel free to correct any bad spelling. I'm not a native speaker so I will appreciate any help I can get.
> 
> As for the story itself: I still don't have much of a plot, I'm just going a bit with the flow with very few scenes I want to write. Timeline wise this happens just after the battle of Hogwarts though the scene I settled on is a mix of both the movie and the book.
> 
> When it comes to the Elder wand in the book Harry uses it to fix his holly and phoenix feather wand before placing it back inside Dumbledore's tomb claiming that the legacy of that wand would die with him (which had a logical flaw since it would mean that all it would take was for someone else to defeat Harry for the ownership of the wand to change again, the only difference would be that it would be harder to track down the Elder wand). In the movie Harry simply breaks it, meaning it can no longer cause discord, but forgets to fix his original wand. I made him fix it this time.
> 
> Also, he kept the Reincarnation Stone in this one, just because XP
> 
> As for Naruto timeline-wise, it starts just a couple of months before the Kyuubi attack.
> 
> There will be eventually a romantic subplot and I do have one pairing in mind already, ok maybe two. I'm definitely a NaruHina fan so if that is a pairing you don't like then I don't recommend this story to you, but it'll still a long time before that happens in a way that becomes relevant to the story so I guess feel free to enjoy it until then? yey?
> 
> Anyway. Enough awkwardness! Enjoy your read.

**Prologue: Three Shades**

* * *

Things had been going great for a post war civilization. Sure, there was still a lot of tension and suspicion between the hidden villages from opposing sides, but that was to be expected. The scars of war are supposed to be deep, after all.

Even inside the villages you could still feel this tension.

From shinobi to civilians, everyone walked from side to side very much aware of their surroundings.

That was why everyone had immediately been on high alert that summer after a sudden burst of some odd sort of chakra from outside the village. At first, they thought that it had something to do with the Red-Hot Habanero and her bijuu. Though she did keep an impressive control over the Kyuubi, Uzumaki Kushina was known for her temper.

But such suspicions where quickly put to rest once it was verified that she was taking a nap with her very pregnant belly at home and thus had nothing to do with it.

ANBU teams were quickly deployed to explore the area where the burst had originated from, only to realize that something there was clearly messing with their minds. The teams came back confused and uncertain of what had happened. They remembered being in one place searching for answers and suddenly where waking up in another completely different place with no memories of going from point A to point B. Others were simply wandering around the forest looking for the other teams, insisting that _that_ was their assigned task, even if it wasn't.

Eventually they did manage to send a team that scoured the area uninterrupted by any mind shenanigans and trickery. The only thing they found was a small crater with a finely carved, yet broken, stick at its center that let loose sparks or red blue and green from it's fracture point. The ninken found signs of at least three unknowns around the crater that extended for a bit, followed by some signs of struggle leading away from it, probably from the confused teams. Eventually the traces disappeared altogether, as if the people had simply vanished into thin air. There where no hints as to who those unknown people were, where they came from and what their intentions were.

That was concerning to say the least.

For a few weeks everyone was on high alert. The civilians eventually attributed it to shinobi testing new ninjutsu skills on the forest and relaxed a bit, but the higher ups were very much concerned. The one most concerned of all was the Yondaime Hokage. With his wife's labor drawing closer and closer, he could not afford any mishaps in security.

With all the concerns regards a potential attack, no one noticed small out of place things happening throughout the village.

Pawnshop owners and jewelers found themselves in possession of large sizeable disks of pure gold and a written transition of a money exchange. It wasn't unusual to find similar transactions with smaller disks of pure silver, and even smaller disks of bronze. They were all etched with weird engravings depicting winged lizards, weird pointy hatted people, among other weird imagery.

Still, there was no indication of theft, even if the owners didn't remember ever having made such purchase, so such matters weren't addressed with any sort of emergency. It was more of a weird story exchanged with drinking buddies. Thought less common, some merchants also noticed having sold more produce than they thought they had. Those were mere weird facts that weren't really talked about extensively, especially when compared with the weird coins case.

Some younger ninken, the ones belonging to academy-aged Inuzuka kids, had noticed the scent of strangers entering the classroom but hadn't been able to point out their whereabouts. Those stories weren't really taken seriously. Young pups were still in training so as to properly use their sense of smell, after all. And why would anyone need to enter a classroom while invisible after all? The reports of weird scents stopped after a month or two.

Summer ended and Fall started with no other signs of anything wrong. Aside of the occasional weird coin showing up or a slightly dazed shop owner that could remember having as much sales as what he had registered. There were some signs of someone breaking into the library after the first two months, though. Books would go missing for a day or two and they would suddenly show up on the front desk. It was assumed that an orphan might have done it, having no money to get themselves a library card. The fact that the books were returned meant that at least the kid was honorable enough so as not to steal them. Because of that no further reports aside from the first few were filed.

September quietly passed by. There was a report of strange lights from the Forest of Death but weird things happened there all the time. It was probably a Chunin or Jounin secretly practicing a new jutsu, though the location was very much unorthodox.

October started like any other month before. Then the tenth day came, Uzumaki Kushina, the famed Red Hot Habanero, jinchuuriki to the ninetails and wife to the 4th Hokage, went into labor, a stranger attacked and the Kyuubi was freed.

Details of that day were murky at best when it came to the civilians and even most of the shinobi did not know everything that had happened that day. All that most people knew was that when the gigantic fox started attacking the village, three people in black capes appeared and shot red beams of light towards it. The Kyuubi clearly reacted to the beams and tried to crush the caped trio with it's massive hand. They shunshined away just in time and one landed on its snout, attacking its eyes with some more beams while the other two attacked from behind.

The one on the snout jumped away when the Kyuubi tried to claw at him. In another situation it might have been amusing to see the massive facepalm the beast had unwittingly preformed. As things were, several shinobi took the moment of its distraction to land a few hits with their jutsu while the remaining others helped evacuate the civilians and children.

The now irate Kyuubi swiped it's massive hand-like paw towards the hospital, intending on causing as much destruction as possible. One of the black caped shunshined in front of it, used a beam that slowed its arm and then created some sort of barrier. If the arm had still been going as fast as before, it could have broken both the barrier and the building. Instead, only the barrier was shattered and the caped man was sent hurdling towards the wall behind him with great force.

One of the other two caped people tried to go after their fallen comrade but was then violently attacked by the fox and had to jump to the side. They shot a beam at the hand-paw and created a relatively large gash that was probably comparable to a paper cut on a hand so large. They then shunshined to a safer location and continued attacking.

The other caped person shunsined to the Kyuubi's head again and started attacking the ears. It was then that the 4th Hokage finally returned and took the fox away to another location. Unfortunately for the caped person on its head, they were taken with them.

The one that was left behind and was still standing looked around in alarm, searching their teammate's whereabouts. Upon seeing no immediate danger, they must have assumed their other teammate had gone to their fallen comrade and shunshined towards there.

They approached the unmoving man.

His cape had fallen and a ginger head of hair shone against the grey pavement, looking like a flame. The features were clearly male, his cheeks dusted with freckles. He was young, probably late teens.

His eyes were staring out vacantly as he laid in a pool of blood.

Some of the braver medics had fearfully approached in an attempt to keep him alive but it had been in vain.

His comrade screamed in agony in a voice that was clearly female, falling to her knees, begging and pleading in an odd and foreign language for his life. Grief and desperation didn't need translation. Everyone there had suffered enough losses with the war, and now with the fox demon attack, that they all understood her pain.

They let her sit there, staring numbly at her dead friend, as they began gathering the surviving and injured people to transport them to the hospital.

Only a few still curious gawkers noticed her other teammate return in their odd shunshin with a pop. They froze upon seeing the state their comrade was in and knelt down near the weeping woman. They only needed a few moments to gather themselves. It was clear that this third figure was used to the feelings of loss far more than his female companion.

They took hold of their female companion and shunshined her away with another pop. They returned moments later, this time alone. They gathered a few belongings from the fallen man, probably items of personal nature, and then tried to position the body in a far more composed manner instead of the disjointed pose from before. They shuddered when, upon moving a broken arm, they felt shattered bone grind against shattered bone but they were determined on finishing their self-imposed task.

They then pointed a carved stick to their own throat and, with some foreign gibberish, they zapped themselves. They then turned to the closest person and finally spoke something they could understand, their voice revealing him to be a man.

"Can I bury him in your graveyard?" He asked.

The 3rd Hokage returned in time to hear that question. He looked as grief struck as the caped man sounded.

"Your friend is a hero to this village. He gave his life to save our hospital. We shall bury him with all the honor he deserves." He swore, placing a well-meaning hand on the stranger's shoulder.

"Make sure you do. I need to go now. My other friend needs me. I'm trusting you with this." He then shrugged off the hand on his shoulder, stood up and vanished with a twirl and a popping sound.

The caped figures weren't sighed again for a few days until their friend's burial and, even then, only from afar, since a crowd had gathered to pay their respects to the savior of their hospital and all it's residents. No one knew the man's name, nor his teammates', so he was put in a grave with an unnamed but finely sculpted marker.

The female approached only when it was time for someone to toss the dirt into the gaping hole scouring the earth. She deserved to be the one to do it more than any on the spectators that were closest to the grave. Her male companion took that chance to approach their dead friend too.

Once the burial was complete and the headstone finally placed the male took a step forward and took his carved stick out. Muttering a few words, he used the wand to write something in a language no one understood. The female then stepped forward and did the same, but this time in characters they did understand.

'Uīzurī Ron' it read.

The two caped figures left before anyone could approach them. Though they did a lot for the village, they were still strangers and the ANBU was pretty interested in knowing about their skills. So, they had to leave before the ceremony was over.

They disappeared from sight but, for the next few years, there would still be signs of their presence in the village everywhere. No one ever found out where they were living no matter how much they searched. Ron's name was added to the Memorial Stone, even though he didn't belong to the village and probably wasn't a shinobi, and it didn't take long for flowers that definitely didn't come from the village's flower shops to begin showing up there.


	2. Chapter 1: Of Cat and Dog

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kakashi's POV.  
> He meets a cat loving young woman.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp, here's the official first chapter as far as I'm concerned. Hermione meets Kakashi and it follows a bit of Kakashi's POV. Kakashi is 16 here and Hermione is 19~20 just for timeline reference. And no, they won't get together any time soon. After one more face to face meeting, they won't see each other for quite some time.
> 
> I'm a bit unsure of when certain things happen in the time between the kyuubi attack and the start of the manga but right now Orochimaru has already left the village, Kakashi is still an ANBU but no longer a ROOT member, the Hyuuga affair still hasn't happened either. Anyway! Enjoy!

**Chapter 1: Of Cat and Dog**

* * *

_Kakashi's POV_

It was impossible to not notice them wherever he came to visit his old friend. They were always different whenever he came. Whoever left them there probably visited the place as much as he did.

It was strange, though. As someone who visited the Memorial so often, Kakashi was acutely aware of every single person that visited the Memorial Stone and how often they did it. He knew every single person but for this one. And for two people who came here so often, one had to wonder how they hadn't stumbled upon each other after two years.

Oh, he was aware of the stories. The 'Village's Shades', they called them. He'd seen only a bit of how they moved and worked together in the Kyuubi incident two years ago. He hadn't even gotten a good clear view of them. He'd been forced to retreat to safety due to his young age. He was so sure he would have done his part if he hadn't been stuck inside the barrier. His biggest concern had been focused on his sensei and his wife and child.

And, in the end, he'd lost them too.

Another name to add to the list. He wondered when everyone else that he knew and cared about would end up there as well. Considering how friendly he was with him, he wouldn't be surprised if Gai was next.

Either way, he hadn't really paid much attention to the two strangers at the mass funeral either. Heck, he hadn't even looked at their dead friend. All he knew was that his orange-ish hair should have, by all means, made it easier to find him those first months after the chakra explosion and before the kyuubi attack and they hadn't been able to do so.

There were several stories circulating about the Konoha Shades after the funeral. By now they were practically depicted as mythological beings. Some people viewed them as guardian angels and told their children how they should feel safe so long as the Shades were around. Others preferred to use them as some sort of boogie man. They told them how if the Shades found a kid wandering the streets past their parent's curfew they would snatch them away.

He'd never personally been ordered to search for the Shades and bring them to the T&I building, unlike many of his fellow ANBU, a fact he was thankful to, because he had no interest in them what so ever. The farther away they were from the village the better in his opinion. Them and all those rumors of magic.

Aside from the duality of bedtime stories, there were several sightings of the so-called Shades all over the village, buying stuff and doing all sorts of regular civilian stuff, all mixed in with so called acts of magic like repairing a broken vase or using a stick to make colorful sparks for the enjoyment of local children.

Supposedly the colorful clutch of half withered flowers sitting in front of the grave today had been made by magic too. Like he would believe that. Either there was a slight of hand involved or they were using some sort of genjutsu. Either way, he didn't really feel comfortable with those people that had no known affiliation just being around his village without any word to anyone, refusing to officially become part of the village, preferring to lurk around like ghosts.

And someone with no affiliation was an unnecessary danger that the village did not need right now.

There were already specific ANBU assigned to try and find them. The missions had been failures so far. For every and each sighting, they had always been gone by the time the ANBU arrived. Even when he himself scented one of them in the air, they took no time to vanish out of the blue, leaving no trace.

So, it was quite by chance that he'd come across one of them. Or better yet, one of them had come across him.

He noticed the presence before he'd seen her. Still, it wasn't the gradual awareness from someone walking there. It was more a sort of: one moment she wasn't there and the next she was just beyond some bushes and heading his way. Even preforming a shunshin would have been more gradual, no matter how fast it was performed. It took all he had not to flinch at it.

She was wearing some simple dark grey trousers, a form fitting burgundy v-neck and the trademark black cape but the hood was down showing a mane of dense locks of brown hair and warm chocolate brown eyes. She was short too. She couldn't be much older than him and certainly wasn't even as fit as many of the genin shinobi. He noticed with distaste that she also reeked of cats.

All this fuss over her and her friend? How could they not have found her yet?

Sure, he knew better than judge people by their age. He had just turned sixteen and had been an ANBU for a while, after all. But her age wasn't the issue. She practically had no muscles from what he could see of her, through her form fitting shirt and tight pants. How fast could she have possibly run so as not to be caught by any ANBU squad what so ever? And though he had yet to see the remaining Shade, he had an inkling that he was even slimmer than her.

She froze upon seeing him there and looked uncertain, but only for a moment. The moment soon was over and she stiffened her spine and walked determinedly towards the Memorial Stone. He proceeded to pretend to ignore her.

He really couldn't ignore her completely. Not when she was a hazard to the safety of the village. But it had already been proven that hunting either of them down was fruitless so repeating the same thing again certainly wouldn't yield different results. It only irked him that she had chosen to approach him now of all times. He cherished the alone time he spent with his friend from beyond the grave and it didn't help that he was feeling incredibly down this day in particular, which only served to further enhance his annoyance.

She was clearly pretending to ignore him back, but she was still far too easy to read for him to buy into her pretense. He could easily tell she was very much aware of his presence there. She was about as good at masking her movements and expressions as a civilian. So transparent.

He decided to wait for her to take the lead, afraid that he just might spook her up by being the one starting the conversation. Besides, for her to not have turned around and fled as soon as she laid eyes on him meant that she was probably interested in talking too.

The silence was tense as they both stood there waiting grumpily for the other to talk. He felt her eye him from time to time. Kakashi couldn't help but wonder why the hell none of his ANBU comrades hadn't caught her yet, seeing as she had literally been standing right there for almost a half an hour already.

At that point, their standing there in silence had turned into a very competitive game of patience to see who would give in first. Kakashi wasn't even sure why he hadn't just either captured her or turned around and came back later after so long. Any other time he probably would have but he was feeling particularly stubborn and on edge that day. The seriousness of his work as an ANBU was weighing down on him pretty hard and all he really wanted was for this whole thing to be over so that he could be alone in front of the Memorial Stone. In a way, one could say he was picking a 'fight' with her.

Unfortunately, she was being pretty indecisive about approaching him and seemed to be in the exact same sour mood as him. Why? He had no idea. It wasn't like she could have anything weighing on her as much as-.

"This is getting ridiculous!" She interrupted his line of though harshly, giving him a win in the patience department, as petty as that might be. "It's clear neither of us is going anywhere with this."

She had a weird accent with every word she spoke that he couldn't really place anywhere on the map, and that was saying something, considering he had been to almost everywhere on his missions. He merely turned and stared at her.

"Great, another silent and broody type! As if there aren't enough of those here already. What lack of originality." She muttered to herself after she received no response to her previous outburst.

It was obvious she hadn't meant for him to hear that and, if not for his acute hearing, he might not have at all. He wasn't sure if he should feel insulted or amused at that. For now, he was just feeling irritated from his still lingering bad mood. Maybe later, when he wasn't quite so on edge, he might decide which reaction to have to her words.

"So, any reason why you aren't trying to capture me? I thought you ANBU were supposed to be coming after us." She asked, startling him greatly.

No one was supposed to know who was behind the mask when it came to ANBU. Sure a few close people did know. Gai certainly knew him even when he wore the mask. There was only so much that he could hide from someone who knew him so well, after all. So that begged the question: how did she know?

Before he could do anything else, she had already reacted to his surprise.

"Are you seriously that surprised I figured out it was you? HOW!? You literally walk around with a mask on already. What's one more layer? Not to mention your very much recognizable silver hair. There aren't many ninja with silver hair around here, you know?" She facepalmed with an expression that read 'how can you be so stupid' that was mildly offensive. He also noted the incorrect use of the word 'ninja' instead of 'shinobi'. "It's not like there are that many people that reached ANBU status at your age, you know? People talk. Mind you, not publicly like some sort of raunchy gossip, but still."

"So, you know who I am." He commented unsurely. This wasn't the sort of thing he was used to deal with.

With other shinobi it was easy, there were protocols for those, after all. Enemy shinobi were eliminated and allies were dealt in accordance to the specific situation so as to ensure secrecy. The issue wasn't even posed when it came to civilians. They simply wouldn't have the chance to find out and, even in the unlikeliest chance that they stumbled across an unconscious ANBU member, they knew better that to remove the mask, independently of what village each of them belonged to. No sensible civilian wanted to risk their lives by incurring the wrath of an ANBU member.

But she was neither of those and didn't even fit on the category of enemy or ally. What was he supposed to do in this situation? But more importantly: how exactly did she figure it out? The mere fact that she knew it already put her in a very precarious position and he had to lock himself in his place so as not to make a grab at her. If he wanted to grab her it had to be done when she was least expecting it, since he still didn't know how she and her friend had managed to escape so many times.

"Mind clarifying that last bit. The 'not publicly' bit." He narrowed his visible eye at her. One had to ask if she had infiltrated any of the governmental buildings.

"I was just at a popular ninja stall. It was heavily protected with… I think you call them seals? I guess they are to ensure that no one can hear what's being said from the outside but… I was already in there in the first place. They just hadn't noticed me."

"That seems unlikely." He commented with a glare.

"I'm pretty easy to ignore if I should choose so."

"Are you?" He challenged her.

"I am." She said, though she looked a bit uneasy, having sensed that there was more to the question than what he was letting through.

"Easy enough to infiltrate a heavily guarded building?" He asked and, before she could process his implication and see his intentions, he had already snatched her hand, gripping it firmly.

"Hey! Let go."

"Sorry, can't let a potential security risk walking around free. Not until we determine just how much of a security risk you ar-." Before he could finish his sentence, the girl suddenly took a determined step to the side and he suddenly felt like he was being forced through a very tight rubber tube.

When he finally felt like he could breathe again he had accidentally let go of the girl's arm and she suddenly disappeared in a flurry of movement from his side with a loud crack.

He realized he was now five meters away from the Memorial Stone and that she was now on the opposite side of it, thirteen meters away from him.

"I have not ventured inside your precious buildings. Neither has my friend. We simply wish to be left alone and for that we need to be unnoticed. Can you blame us? You all have literally been chasing us for two years. We couldn't even finish watching Ron's funeral because you just had to capture us! Do you seriously believe that we wouldn't have done any of the things you fear we could do if we really wanted to? We could. We just choose not to. We have more important things to worry about than your pesky clan politics and the sort."

"We don't know who you are and we have no assurances that you won't go there at all." He shot back, getting ready to lift his hitai-ate if needed.

He had sensed no chakra from her shunshin and had no idea how it could have worked without it. He should exert more caution. He had no idea of her abilities. He should also go back to listening to her, if only to analyze her words. Besides, if she and her friend weren't hostile just yet, listening to her might ensure, at least in part, that she wouldn't turn into one. If he kept attacking, however, she might decide to take revenge on his village if she ultimately escaped, after all.

He relaxed his stance a bit. This wasn't the time to let his irritation and worry take charge. He put on his mission mindset.

"But then again, I'm not exactly giving you the chance to explain yourself either, am I?" he commented.

His words surprised her into relaxing her stance a bit as well, though she still remained wary of his movements.

"Exactly!" She nodded and then continued. "And you are right, you do not know a thing about us. It's natural that you would be at least a bit suspicious of us." She admitted. "But still. Two. Damn. Years!"

"We are shinobi. We are pretty big on secrecy and information. Can you blame us?" Kakashi commented aloofly. "Lets start of simple, shall we. You already know this but my name is Kakashi. Yours?"

"Mine is a bit of a mouthful but I guess you can call me Hermy." She replied.

"He-ru-mi…" He sounded her name out.

It sounded different from what she'd enounced but not unpleasantly so. She decided she liked his way of pronouncing it. It was better than having her name completely butchered, anyway.

"Sure, let's go with that." She agreed.

"So, Herumi, can you tell me why you are here and what you have to do with the chakra explosion that summer from two years ago?"

"I'm still researching about that. We have no idea what happened, to be honest. All we know is that Harry broke the Elder Wand and next thing we were blasted into the middle of a forest we had never seen before and unable to go back.

"Haryi? Wand?"

"Harry is the name of my friend. A wand is… well… this." She produced a delicately carved stick from one of her pockets.

"What does it do?" He asked, remembering that a similar thing had been inside the crater from the explosion.

"Magic." He deadpanned at her answer and, upon seeing in disbeliefing and annoyed expression she was quick to add. "No, really, it's true."

She waved her wand towards the Memorial Stone and, suddenly, the half-withered flowers started changing shapes and turning into freshly picked blooms once more, much to Kakashi's surprise. He couldn't help but be thankful that his face mask hid his shameless gapping upon realizing that there was no slight of hands involved, nor any chakra what so ever.

It was only upon realizing the smug smirk that Herumi was now sporting that Kakashi finally managed to regain his senses.

"Impressive, I guess." He said aloofly, not wanting her to know how badly she had surprised him.

"Not really. I can do better. But thanks anyway." She said and he had to wonder just how much she could actually do. If only he could have stuck around to see it. Then again, if he had stuck around he could have been too busy trying to help his sensei instead of seeing what the Shades were capable of.

"So… basically your friend broke a wand and somehow you wound up here?" He asked dubiously, looking at the innocent looking wand on her hand.

"I think so. It's still odd, though. Just breaking a wand shouldn't have this sort of effect. Many wands get broken everyday back where we lived and none made their owners travel through time and space to a different dimension. Then again it was the Elder Wand, which is the most powerful wand in existence. Several pieces of research have shown that the Elder Wand works differently than a typical wand when it comes to its possession." She rambled on and he tried to keep up. Thank got he had a good memory.

"How so?" He asked.

"Well, wands aren't just simple pieces of wood, Kakashi. Sure, they might seem like it, but they do actually have some semblance of rational thought. It's to the point that any wand maker will say that it is the wand that chooses the wizard and not the other way around. And then they tend to remain loyal to their wizard except in few, very specific situations. The Elder Wand, however, is not loyal to anything other than raw power. If you lose its respect for your power, you can't count on it for anything, including it working well."

Inadvertently, Kakashi started tuning her out. He had no idea what those weird words all meant and that made it difficult to follow her explanation. Perhaps if he had a better explanation of what each of those things were? He still filed away the information for when he actually knew the terms but right now he had nothing to work with.

"I gotta say, Herumi-san. You lost me with this."

"Oh. Ok. Sorry. I sometimes forget that the people here have no idea what I'm talking about." She said with a bit of a blush.

"It's ok." He reassured her.

"So, basically, the Elder Wand is the most powerful of wands and works differently from all the other wands because of that. That might be why we ended up here, though I'm not completely sure of that. Also, we have no way back either. I've tried scouring the library for answers but it has been two years and nothing I've read was helpful in the least." She summed up.

"Somehow I doubt that any techniques that might provide help in regards to going back to your home would be there to begin with." Kakashi commented.

"Not to mention that they all rely on chakra which me and Harry have little of. Even if one of us can begin to exert some sort of chakra control and begin exercising it in ways that might help improve the amount we currently have, there's no way we would ever reach the quantity we need to preform one of those jutsu." Herumi admitted.

"So… basically you're stuck here." He stated and she nodded with resignation. "Then why not join our society instead of running around hiding away like missing-nin?" And why deciding to approach them only now of all times?

Herumi flinched at his question and then seemed to ponder on the best way to reply.

"… I heard him. I shouldn't have but I did." She reluctantly admitted, only serving to confuse him further.

"Who?" He asked.

"The one called Danzo. He… he wants to use us for his plans. He was setting up a way to brainwash us two years ago. He probably even managed to do it with that Snake Guy's help." Herumi explained. "Harry probably could resist the brainwashing. He is far too strong willed and has some experience with mind assault. But I'm not." She then looked at him pleadingly. "I'm not a weapon, Kakashi. I'm not made to kill others on command. As far as I know, I have never been responsible for anyone dying, not even indirectly. And Harry has only ever killed two people and, even then, it was both a matter of his own survival and protecting everything he cared about respectively. And I know for a fact he loathes the idea of being used. Even if we get accepted into the village as citizens as you suggested, we would have to spend all the time watching our backs. Orochimaru isn't a good guy, as you know by now. And Danzo… He endorsed many of his experiments. Even if Orochimaro is now gone, it doesn't change the fact that he used to have his support. Danzo also hasn't really changed his mind when it comes to us. I know it and Harry can tell too. The only thing that would change would be that we would be far easier to locate than we are right now. Sorry but I must decline your invitation for now, as well meaning as it, hopefully, is."

He couldn't really contest her there. Not after Orochimaru's experiments had been found. And Kakashi was well aware of what Danzo thought about the Sandaime. He had been in his ROOT organization for a bit, after all. But that was when he'd still thought the Sandaime was partially to blame for his sensei's death. He hadn't known anything about any brainwashing experiments, though. Maybe that was something that bore interest in investigating.

Still, it didn't sit well with him that she and her friend would be able to roam free without having some sort of connection to Konoha, since it meant they were free to betray them later on. Letting people with no affiliation to the village stick around was a very risky thing. Something only done with the most trustworthy of allies, and even then it was done seldom. By all rights he should just capture her now…

But she made a very good point.

He wasn't very big on the whole using people as weapons and tools. He was a believer of teamwork, not mind slavery. But even if he wasn't, Danzo was the last person that should have these guys as personal weapons.

"This puts us a bit at odds…" Kakashi commented out loud as he tried to figure out how to make it work for everyone involved. He was pretty sure she hadn't stuck around just to tell him to shove it and go back into hiding. She must have wanted to actually be able to be in the village without being chased but was too scared of the complications such thing came with.

"Indeed it does." Herumi agreed. "And to think all I was looking forward to was visiting Ron and hopefully dispel a serious case of bad mood…"

"Me too." He agreed.

It didn't quite explain why Herumi was at the Memorial Stone instead of Ron's grave, though. But he wasn't about to question her about that. She had already provided him with a lot more information than what he had expected. Information he was pretty sure she could have withheld. She looked pretty smart. Smart enough to know to conceal information far better than she had. Which reinforced hi belief that she was clearly trying to use this misfortunate situation to at least reach out to the village and Hokage in some way.

"Life really is a bloody bitch, huh?" She said after some pondering of her own.

Somehow the fact that she was using swear words didn't seem to fit her at all and he had no idea why.

"Indeed. You know we can't keep this situation indefinitely. Sooner or later the council and Danzo will press to have you either under control or eradicated."

They had already been putting pressure on the Sandaime and the only reason they hadn't pressed harder against the Shades was both because they were pretty tame and didn't attack anyone, quite the contrary, considering the amount of gold that was getting into Konoha's economy, not to mention the fact that they were heroes, but also because there was a bigger focus on Naruto.

It disgusted him to see the way everyone was acting towards his sensei's kid. The Sandaime tried his hardest to keep Kakashi away from his meetings with the council but, even then, there was only so much that he could do to keep him from finding out just how much the members of the council wanted to, either kill off the child or put him under Danzo's 'care'.

That was the only reason why the council hadn't put much of an effort when it came to the Shades but, now that was becoming clearer and clearer that the Sandaime would not allow either of their suggestions regarding Naruto, it was only a matter of time before they became the focus once more. And when that moment came, that was when Herumi and her friend would run out of time.

"I know." She said. "But short of selling ourselves out to your leader, I don't really see what else we can do. I suppose we could leave the village but, even after all the studying I did on the Elemental countries, I don't see how it would be any different whether we settled down in another city or not. Even if we didn't stay at a hidden village, it would be a matter of time before word of mouth reached one and a ninja came to investigate and assess our potential."

"I'll be sure to pass your concerns along to Sandaime-sama." He said at last to close the issue once and for all. At least for now, that is. "Needless to say that if you want to have some autonomy, you'll have not only to ally yourselves with our village in a way that can't be contested, but you'll also have to be of use, somehow."

"Hmm…" She pondered. "Well, I do know some potions that can be of use for your village, though I feel reluctant to trade them off, should they be used to cause harm…"

"What sort of potions?" Kakashi asked with interest.

"For starters I do know a few poisons with interesting qualities but I really don't really want to use any of them as bargaining chip and I think you have enough poisons already as it is. But I also do know a potion that can be used to counter a big array of poisons. I have yet to try it on all the poisons in this place so I don't know if it works with every single one of them but it does heal a lot. and I do have another potion that replenishes blood, which is good both for the battle field as well as in a hospital setting. There's one that regrows bone too. There's a paste that can be used to heal burns. But aside from all of the medical potions, there is one in specific that might be very useful for your T&I department. We call it Veritaserum and the person that takes it becomes unable to lie in any sense." Herumi enumerated.

"They sure do sound pretty useful. Useful enough to use as an excuse for your stay. I suppose the Hokage could technically say that your friend Haryi is a package deal with you but… What can your friend can do?" Kakashi asked, all the while wondering just how strong the last potion was and if there was anyway to counter it what so ever.

"What makes you think he isn't already doing something of worth?" Herumi asked with a sly smile that made Kakashi very cautious of what was going to say next.

"…What is he doing, then?" He finally asked after a long moment of silence.

"For now he has been making sure that Naruto is well taken care of and that no harm comes to him, unlike those frauds your Hokage had taking care of him"

"What!? Why?" Kakashi asked.

It's not that he disapproved, but he wasn't quite sure if he could trust a perfect stranger with his sensei's child. Who knew what that man's intentions were. Still her words regarding Naruto's caretakers worried him.

"Harry… well… he had a rough childhood. When he heard what the council and the villagers were saying about the kid… He simply couldn't allow an innocent child to have the same childhood as what he had."

"So… he was hated?"

"If you want details, you're going to have to ask him later. But even I, who have been his friend since he was eleven, don't know everything so I doubt he'll tell you much. He has an annoying habit of not telling us- me. Telling me how bad things really got for him."

"…Sure… Anything else?"

"I'd have to ask him what he would be comfortable with doing. Just… Make sure that whatever deal your Hokage comes up with keeps us from being used in any capacity. We are willing to cooperate but we won't stand for being used." She asked.

"I'll see what I can do." He said.

"Thanks." She looked back at the Memorial Stone, finally dropping her guard. He once again wondered why she came here when Ron had a grave for himself. "He took his body, you know?"

"What?" He asked, confused by her sudden addition.

"Orochimaru." She clarified. "He took Ron's body from his grave. The earth was disturbed one of the days I went there and I had Harry verify if everything was ok. That's how we found out. Considering Orochimaru's experiments we knew he had to be the one who did it. We still haven't been able to figure out where he hid it. He probably took it with him when he left." She looked back at him as he stood there with no idea what to say wondering why she felt compelled to tell him that. She smiled sadly at his confusion. "I don't even need to read minds to be able to see you were wondering about why I'm here of all places. I assume it's a similar reason for you too."

She then walked towards the Memorial Stone once more and messed around a bit with her magic flower arrangement. She then said something in a language he didn't know and finally stood up.

"See you someday, I guess." And with that she disappeared in that same twirling motion she did, this time with a soft pop instead of a loud crack. He wondered if it was the hastiness of her previous shunshin that made it so that it wasn't as silent as this one.

After a moment of silence he sighed in resignation.

"Well. As you could witness, not even here can I have some peace of mind, it seems. I wonder what you would say to all of this, Obito." He asked the stone. "You'd probably be laughing your ass off at her comment. What was it she said about my 'broody' demeanor? 'What lack of originality.' I bet you'd be rolling on the floor with laughter by now."

He had to admit, she was a little interesting personality-wise all in all. Too bad she smelled too much of cats. He wondered if she fed a battalion of stray cats or something similar.

With that thought in mind, he shunshined away towards the Hokage tower. He had a few urgent things to discuss with the Sandaime.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, initially i wasn't going to ship Kakashi and Hermione, but then I wrote this chapter and I liked the potential relationship dynamic that could come from here and decided that I wanted to further develop this. They will only meet one more time at this age before spending a few years apart. Let's face it, though the age gap isn't that big, it still weirds me out at this age and Hermione wouldn't consider someone younger. not yet anyway. It's pretty much a matter of perspective. Once she becomes older, a mere gap of three years becomes nothing special.
> 
> She has taken to curse after Ron died, much like Kakashi has taken to Obito's tardiness and lame escuses.
> 
> Of course Orochimaru had to steal the body. The dude had the nerve to plunder the first Hokage's body for his experiments, why wouldn't he steal the body of a 'shade'?
> 
> Anyway, next chapter comes soon.


	3. Chapter 2: The Inner Ramblings Of A Twenty-Year-Old

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry's POV on exactly what happened up until now.

**Chapter 2: The Inner Ramblings Of A Twenty-Year-Old**

* * *

_Harry's POV_

After the battle in Hogwarts, he and his two closest friends had walked off, their gear still on them even after the battle they had gone through. They had asked what he would do with the Elder Wand and he had decided that it was far too dangerous to keep existing. Thank god Ron had pointed out that if he broke it he wouldn't have any wand to use. Otherwise he wouldn't have remembered to use the Elder Wand to fix his first wand. If he hadn't fixed his phoenix feather wand, he would have been completely vulnerable. Once he had it fixed, he finally decided to break the Elder Wand and it exploded.

Somehow that explosion had brought the Golden Trio to this odd place filled with ninja. Ron had been excited about the ninja. Though he had never heard of the muggle concept, he certainly loved what he was seeing them do. 'Bloody brilliant!' he'd said.

Still, they were stuck and with no way to return home to their family.

Hermione was the first to come up with the idea of doing research, but they didn't know the language. Sure, a few translation spells she'd learned from her books could help a bit, but they only helped with spoken language, not written one. So, he lent his invisibility cloak to her and she entered classrooms in an attempt to learn how to speak and write without the help of magic.

With the help of some memory boosting potions, Hermione managed to master the spoken language in a month and was making great headway on written language. In turned she helped him and Ron learn the language at a much slower rate.

He began venturing through the village underneath his invisibility cloak. It was incredible how the cloak's magic managed to shield him from everything but keen noses and ears. So long as he walked quietly and wasn't around dogs no one would notice him. Not even those guys with the weird eyes that supposedly saw through everything.

It was funny how he could just sneak into the Hokage's office and sit there without the blond noticing him… so long as there were other people around, that is. He had tried being there alone with the guy and it hadn't gone too well. He must have heard him breathing and Harry had no choice but to escape using a Confundus spell. He also learned to avoid the whole Inuzuka clan as well as that guy with the silver hair that covered most of his face.

He hadn't just been sneaking in for the sake of mischief, though. His objective had been to learn what they knew about them and what they intended to do with them if they caught them. He was relieved to find out that their main concerns were about the Yondaime's wife's pregnancy. Something about a… 'bijuu'? As far as they were concerned, the 'chakra explosion', as they called it, it might not have been from a rival hidden village, considering there was no follow up what so ever to the initial 'attack'. It was probably the result of the testing of a new jutsu according to them. Still, the ninja war was fresh enough in their minds that caution was advised no matter what, hence why they hadn't dropped the investigations.

Hermione started investigating jutsu that could be linked to dimensional traveling while he and Ron, but mostly Ron, tried their hand at creating and molding chakra. Ron had also taken upon himself to learn shogi, a sort of chess game from this odd place. Harry and Hermione were often prodded into joining him since he couldn't play with any of the natives. It was probably one of the few times they stopped worrying about going back home at all.

And then, because nothing could ever be that simple, a gigantic fox with a murder-happy attitude was unleashed on the village. They'd been reasonably safe where they were. The Forest of Death might have some really freaky fauna, but all Harry had to do was talk to some snakes and their relative safety was assured in exchange for some unusual food that the snakes couldn't catch themselves food and small favors.

But Harry would never be able to live with himself if he just stood by and let defenseless people die while he was watching. He'd been the one insisting on helping out. If he hadn't gone to help, neither would have Ron and Hermione. If he hadn't selfishly decided what to do, Ron might have…

But it was too late to play the blame game. It was already over and done with. Ron was gone and Harry had to deal with yet another failure on his part.

If only he hadn't been mounted on top of the fox's head. Perhaps he could have at least done something for his friend. After all, it wasn't like he had accomplished much by going along for the ride.

In the end all he had managed to do was cast a Protego spell on the baby when the fox tried to attack him that hadn't even been necessary since both of the kid's parents put themselves in from of him. The spell had at least kept the woman from being too injured from the claw but it had all been for naught. After the seal was done the blond Hokage died and the red-haired woman was already half dead.

He'd tried to keep her alive. He really did. He used one of his Blood-Replenishing potions on her for the blood loss and Essense of Dittany to close the wounds. He hadn't known enough about chakra back then. At least not enough to realize that some extra blood alone wasn't going to be enough to keep her alive if it didn't bring any chakra with it.

In the end all he could do was sit there holding both her and the baby as he waited for the first-responders to arrive.

It didn't take long and Harry relinquished his hold over the child to an old man that the lady seemed to trust, who later turned out to be the Third Hokage. Belatedly he realized he hadn't even put the translating charm back on and had merely been interpreting their body language. Unfortunately, he never had the time to even think of using the charm on himself. All he could do was watch as the light faded from the woman's eyes, nulling all of his efforts in keeping her alive.

He left, still feeling numb from the whole ordeal, longing for the company of his closest friends.

And then he'd seen Ron dead. It had almost been too much for him. It definitely broke the numbness he was feeling. But he had to stop himself from falling apart right there and then. Hermione needed him. He couldn't afford to leave her to her own devices. He couldn't afford to be alone right then either.

Then there was the fact that they had caused too much of a scene to go back to the anonymity they had been relishing in up until then. He had no idea what the ninja would do to them now that they weren't just a pretty myth. He took Hermione back and only stuck around to make Ron's body more presentable.

He would have liked to dig him a grave himself like he had done for Dobby, but not only did he have no idea on where to do it, that action would imply that he let his guard down to started the digging. And he wasn't too keen on that since he had no idea how the ninja would react to him now. So no, he couldn't afford all the honors his friend deserved. So he practically demanded them from Sandaime before taking his leave.

Well… at least the old man had done that much, if nothing else. Harry certainly hadn't appreciated having his mourning interrupted by the arrival of the ANBU teams to 'secure' them.

Those first months had been the hardest for him to bear. Depression had taken hold of him and hadn't let go of it's iron grip. Hermione also had it bad. She seemed to think it had been her fault for not having found a way to go back home sooner or finding a way to contain the fox before it could have killed Ron. Eventually she accepted it hadn't been her fault at all, though she still refused to acknowledge that it had been his.

She eventually started coping with her loss by visiting Ron's grave and feeding the local stray cats. Well, the feeding of the cats might not have been just coping with Ron's loss but Crookshank's as well. She'd left her cat at Ron's family home and now there was no way that she could get him back.

Once she was feeling better, she sometimes borrowed his invisibility cloak to hear what the local government had to say in regards to them. While the Hokage was reasonably worried about their unknown allegiance, he seemed to be willing to give them the benefit of doubt. The Council, and Danzo in particular, however…

The only reason those gits hadn't started hunting them down with pitchforks and torches was because they were too busy worrying about the kid that had the fox sealed into him. Harry blanched when she told him how much they wanted to outright kill the kid. The other option was also very much distasteful, after they had learned just what Danzo was capable of.

So, Harry had taken to watching over the little orphan babe whenever he wasn't busy with something. He knew the Sandaime also had his ANBU keep watch over him but he preferred to be safe rather than sorry. Though the kid wasn't as likely to be kidnapped, unlike them, due to his notoriety as the holder of the Nine-Tailed Fox, there was still the chance that Danzo might still try to risk it despite how public the kidnapping might be.

With his watch came the realization that even the kid's caretakers seemed to loath their charge. They spent most of the day ignoring him as he cried non-stop, barely fed him, and left him to sit on his own poo and pee for hours before finally deciding to clean him up. That had enraged him but there wasn't much he could do without alerting the ANBU of his presence there. He was pretty sure that threatening those people into actually taking care of the kid wouldn't go over well with anyone, even the Hokage. Even if those people were assholes, the Hokage was still in charge of protecting his whole village from anyone and anything. He might even agree with Harry but he would still be compelled to take action against him. On the other hand, taking the baby away wouldn't endear him to anyone just the same, not to mention that it would only make the ANBU more avid in their pursuit.

At first Harry tried to use spells on the caretakers to get them to actually do their job, but even that started to become noticeable after some time. Especially when they walked around looking confused for too long. That forced Harry to start doing those tasks himself when there wasn't anyone around. Because of how often the caretakers left the baby alone and because the ANBU never really went inside the building, just keeping guard outside and making sure no one left with the kid, that task had been far easier than he'd expected.

The first time the kid had actually seen him, he'd spent a couple of seconds just staring at this new face he'd never seen, before going back to crying. Harry had to check around for a bit before making sure that there wasn't anything else amiss and that the kid was just hungry. His first attempts could be described as clumsy at best and if one was being very generous about it but, with an added reading supply of child rearing scrolls, Harry managed to become a somewhat decent caretaker in no time. It took him even less than that for him to grow fond of little Naruto.

Taking care of the little tyke slowly starting being the thing that took up most of his time. He found himself sometimes wondering if he would have been doing the same for Lupin's and Tonk's son had he not been completely uprooted from his dimension. At times he couldn't help but wonder how his godson was doing but was pretty sure his grandma was taking care of him just fine.

He tried not to dwell on how anyone else was doing, though. He could just imagine the disappointment and hatred from Molly Weasley at having lead her son to his death. There was no way she would ever forgive him. Hermione told him several times he was wrong to think that and that, while Molly would be heart broken at her son's death, she would no more blame Harry for his actions than she would actually disinherit any one of her children. He was still unconvinced.

With all that going on, their first Christmas in the new dimension came and went without either of them really paying attention. Harry had just begun taking care of Naruto not long before and was still fumbling with his mistakes while Hermione had begun to take their safety more seriously than ever due to what she'd heard from a private conversation Danzo had with a guy named Orochimaru about a brainwashing jutsu. They'd both been so absorbed in their respective 'works' that it wasn't until the end of February that everything came to a screeching stop.

Hermione had gone visiting Ron's grave after almost a month of intense research into all the council members and had noticed that the dirt was disturbed. She called Harry immediately, having a bad feeling about it. Harry had to be the one digging up the grave while Hermione made sure all the spells keeping the ninja from spotting them were intact. They both felt absolutely gutted when their investigation proved all of Hermione's worries were true. Someone had stolen Ron's body and Hermione was pretty sure that the culprit was the snake Sannin that had fled town after his illegal experiments had been found out not so long ago.

They never managed to recover the body.

When march came and, with it, Ron's birthday, they left their presents for him at the Memorial Stone. They weren't anything durable. There was no use in leaving actual solid objects there to get ruined, after all. Just little symbolic things that would have had meaning to the boy.

After that, both of them had finally managed to shake off the worst of the depression for good. A healthy dose of rage never hurt anyone, after all. Ron's body should have never been stolen and Harry was angry enough to lay a Captain Falcon level punch on the Snake Sannin. As for Hermione? Well… hopefully Orochimaru wouldn't mind too much being turned into some sort of insect or being made to vomit slugs non-stop in honor of Ron's hex with a broken wand back on the Second Year. That is… if she was feeling particularly merciful.

Hermione still researched for a way back home but by then it was becoming obvious that it wasn't yielding any results. Then again, she had limited herself to the techniques that hadn't been sealed away. She had always been a stickler for the rules, after all. Which was why she felt very uncomfortable for them both having to remain as outcasts to the village like they had done something wrong, though she knew more than anyone why it had to be that way.

Harry started helping keep tabs on Danzo and his deeds, something he admitted he should have been helping her with for a long time now, whenever he wasn't sleeping or wasn't taking care of Naruto. Sometimes he did fall asleep sitting next to Naruto's crib after placing a few anti-muggle charms that seemed to work perfectly on the civilians taking care of the little tyke, though not as well on the ninja tasked with watching him.

One year passed since they arrived at this place.

Hermione made no headway when it came to either a jutsu or even a spell, as crazy as that would be in such a different place from their own, to go back home. To be honest, though… He wasn't planning on going back. Most of the people he called family were dead. Heck, even his owl was dead! Despite Hermione's many protests he just knew that the Weasleys would condemn him for his failure to keep Ron alive. She might not outright tell him so but she would. He was also so damn tired of all the fuss the newspapers and ministry made over him back home. The only reason he'd even considered going back was his godson but he was most definitely doing fine. He had Andromeda to look after him after all. And now he had little Naruto to look after and he had no one.

So no, Harry wouldn't go back. But Hermione deserved to have her life back. She didn't have to live here. He could tell that the secrecy and constantly having to look over her shoulder was starting to wear her down. She deserved better.

Summer came and went away without a hitch. Harry managed to keep baby Naruto comfortable by preforming a cooling spell on the room. It also helped that he himself was being cooled down by it as well. Hermione stopped by sometimes to see the kid and talk to him about her latest findings, but she mostly stayed away since having two grown people hidden underneath the Cloak for a long time was starting to become troublesome.

Hermione, meanwhile, managed to find some very interesting scrolls by stumbling by chance on a hidden part of the library and was studying them for information. Apparently that section had been protected by a very strong genjutsu, hence why she hadn't noticed it before. The scrolls stored there used complicated characters so it took her more time to properly acknowledge what was written.

When September came around, Harry presented Hermione with some Konoha History books, the latest one detailing the third war that they had just missed when they had exploded into being in this world. She had spent way too much time researching techniques and Harry knew how much she liked to be on top of everything knowledge-wise. She was the only student he knew of that had even bothered to purchase and read _Hogwarts: A History_ , after all. So he knew she would appreciate learning more about the country they were in, instead of just the techniques they used, as fascinating as some of them were. It was the perfect birthday gift.

Hermione did get a hard time trying to apply any rules from what she knew of physics and magic to this new energy source called chakra. Even magic had rules like one not being able to summon food out of nowhere, there always had to be a source. So, things like suddenly making something really appear out of thin air and not by summoning from somewhere else… Yeah, she just had to know the mechanics behind it.

October 10 came and both him and Hermione presented Naruto with his first toys. There were also some from the Hokage and even two from unknown sources, so their presents wouldn't be too noticeable in the midst of all of it.

Unfortunately, they couldn't spend too much time with Naruto since the Hokage himself decided to pay the kid a visit on his birthday too.

The next year went by much more calmly. This time both him and Hermione remembered Christmas and exchanged gifts. They were also aware enough to realize that this culture had no such thing as Christmas. They still gave gifts to Naruto anyway. Though… now that the little tyke could walk and was starting to form words… they would have to be extra careful.

He also had taken to calling Harry 'Ryi' and Hermione 'Yonii', which was beyond adorable.

The year passed by and there were no signs of Danzo giving up on chasing them. The one good thing was that the council was finally starting to let go of their bloodlust over Naruto, though they were still pretty persistent over it.

Unfortunately, the council started turning towards them, the 'Konoha Shades'. And this started worrying Hermione a lot.

And then, the day before her birthday when she had supposedly gone to visit Ron at the Memorial Stone, she suddenly seemed much more cheerful, though still very cautious. She took no time in telling him of her meeting someone called Kakashi face to face. Apparently, she had read about him in one of the books he had given her the year before.

Harry hadn't really bothered to learn about any ninja aside from who the current Hokage was and who to avoid and how to recognize them from afar just by sight. After a quick description, Harry could finally place a face on the name. He remembered the silver haired guy perfectly. Had the nose of a dog.

Harry was very reluctant to put his trust on the leader of the village. His experiences with Fudge had really messed up any opinion he had of politic members. True, Hiruzen reminded him much more of Dumbledore rather than Fudge. But as loyal as he had been to Dumbledore, it didn't erase the sting of having been used the way he had. Sure, eventually the headmaster had come to care about him, and that alone had managed to calm Harry out of his sadness, but that didn't change the fact that he had fully intended to use him as a beacon of hope at first. Because of a prophecy. And then all the things he had kept hidden from Harry. Things that Harry really should have known long before.

Still, Harry could understand why he did it. Now more than ever. Looking at Naruto and how all the villagers seemed to regard him, there was no doubt that someone would have to explain to the little tyke why everyone seemed to hate him for no good reason. Harry dreaded when that time finally came. Learning he had a piece of Voldemort's soul inside him had been bad enough. Harry couldn't imagine how this bright child of sunshine would react to knowing he had a massive murderous gigantic fox locked inside him. Harry did not want his kid to lose that easy smile he sported around him.

Wait… had he just considered Naruto his kid?

Yeah, he was starting to get too attached.

With a sigh, Harry stood up from his seat near the crib Naruto slept in and, with a last goodbye to the little tyke, he donned the cloak once more and left the building. He had a meeting with the current Hokage over how they would be incorporated into the village.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There you have it.
> 
> So, remember me promising to tell you why Ron had to die? Basically I needed the people that survived to lose interest in returning. Ron would always want to return because he had his family waiting for him while Harry literally has no one other than Teddy and the weasleys and, if he convinced himself that the Weasleys would reject him (because of 'letting' Ron die) he probably would feel a little reluctant, adding to that he now having a kid he feels responsible for, and the fact that he is _done_ with all the boy-who-lived and chosen-one bullcrap, he really loses any reasons to return, like I stated. As for Hermione, Her parents don't remember her and memory charms are almost impossible to break. If you remember, the ones on Bertha Jorkins only broke after several used of the cruciatus curse. gGranted, her's were particularly strong, but it doen't change the fact that the cruciatus still had to be used and I just don't see Hermione doing that to her parents. Aside from them she has her cat who is with the Weasleys and she just lost the guy she loved, so she isn't in a rush to go back. Sure, she still ferociously re-searches time-space jutsu like mad, but that's more to keep herself busy than anything else at this point.
> 
> I basically broke the spirit of the Golden Trio. Sorry-not sorry! ^_^'


	4. Chapter 3: Careful Consideration

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hiruzen investigates the shade's claims and reaches a decision about what to do with them. Naru-chan is adowable!!!!<3 =*w*=

**Chapter 3: Careful Consideration**

* * *

_Hiruzen's POV_

Few things surprised Sarutobi Hiruzen anymore. Still, he couldn't help but be at least a little bit surprised when Hatake Kakashi requested an urgent meeting with him and tells him that the female Shade had just approached him at the Memorial Stone. He had once thought the Shades would one day approach him in regards to joining the village but, after such a long time, he had completely lost hope in regards to that. Hence his surprise.

Kakashi reported that the woman, who requested to be called Herumi since her name was pretty complicated to pronounce, had told him why she was so reluctant to talk to them, especially because of intel she had heard herself from Danzo.

He was even more surprised that she had suggested helping the village out medically with a few potions if he somewhat guaranteed hers and her friend's safety from being abducted. But what really surprised him the most was learning that the other Shade, Haryi, had taken upon himself to watch over Naruto.

Hiruzen had only talked very briefly with the young man two years ago when he requested the burial of his friend and the only impression he'd had of him at the time was his desperate expression while holding both Kushina and Naruto, having tried desperately to keep her alive, and then his gaze filled with sadness and weariness when he'd practically demanded for his friend's body to be treated with honor before disappearing. He didn't get much of a chance to see him at the funeral, especially after the ANBU tried and failed to apprehend him.

Kakashi never did meet with Herumi face to face again, so he left a message on her flowers to Ron trying to make an appointment with him so that they could speak privately. Meanwhile, while everything was being set up, Hiruzen decided it was about as good time as any to visit Naruto and see all the things he probably had missed in his prior visits to the child if Haryi was indeed the one taking care of him.

Making sure to be more alert than he usually was, he visited the small orphanage he had placed the baby at. Before addressing either of the caretakers that had yet to notice him, he decided to chat with a few of the kids.

He was dismayed when most of the kids didn't even know who Naruto was, while others mentioned there was a baby that never left one of the rooms and that they had been told by the grownups to avoid the place at all costs because 'it' had a contagious disease. Those kids also noted that the adults hardly ever went there and mostly only did it when it was really necessary.

He gave the kids some candies for their information and finally decided to alert the caretakers to his presence there. Immediately they flocked to him with the typical pleasantries, trying to placate him before he even showed any signs of knowing they had done something wrong. It hadn't been the first time they had done that and while it had seemed odd to the Hokage before, now he was downright suspicious, not that he showed any of that on his face.

When he requested to see how Naruto was doing, since his birthday was approaching, he noticed how one of the caretakers sneaked up the stairs while the other stalled him. They were quite sneaky and quiet for civilians, but that didn't excuse him not having noticed that behavior before. He had let himself relax his awareness too much just because they were civilians. He really ought to change his ways before he made another mistake, this time one that couldn't be mended in time.

Eventually the other must have deemed that Naruto was presentable enough and came back down and asked if they needed another cup of tea, something he remembered having been asked before in other visits but he hadn't considered that it could have been some sort of code.

Hiruzen denied wanting another cup and they both lead him to the second floor to a small room.

Inside, the only things present were the crib and chair and an assortment of toys. Naruto was busying himself playing a set of three plush toys that Hiruzen was pretty sure hadn't come from him. He excused the other two to go back to their duties minding the other children before he let himself analyze the room deeply. The other two were all to glad to leave the room, though it was plain to see they didn't like the idea of leaving him alone with the child, but not for the fear he would hurt the child or the child would hurt him. They were afraid he would find something out. While not the first time he had told them he was fine being alone with the kid, the request that they return to their chores was unusual enough to put them on edge.

He turned once more to Naruto and sat down on the floor in front of him.

"Hi, Naruto-chan. How are you?" He asked and the toddler looked up from where he was currently playing with a black plush dog from the trio he had noticed before and muttered a cute 'Hi' back. "Who's you friend over here?"

Naruto fiddled a bit with the toy before offering it to him with a very drooled ear. "This is Paafu." He mumbled. Hiruzen accepted the toy just the same, repeating the name.

"Nice to meet you, Paafu."

He examined the plush toy, noticing that it had definitely been made in the village. The fabric was appropriate for a kid who still liked to chew on things. There was a small tear along the seams under one of the toy's 'armpits' but someone had neatly mended it. The bead eyes were a particularly striking color grey, which was odd since most dolls tended to had the standard black eyes. Still, they suited the doll better. The doll also sported a scarlet and gold striped scarf. That scarf was also what denoted the dog plush as part of a trio since the other two dolls had the same scarf.

Speaking of the other two toys, Naruto quickly snatched another of the bunch and offered it to Hiruzen with a wide smile.

"This is Ponsu."

Hiruzen took the toy with another greeting. This time it was a plush doll of a stag with hazel eyes. It comically had a pair of fabric glasses stitched on its snout and, by the fabric quality, he could tell it was a later addition to the doll.

"And this is Muuni." Naruto offered up the last doll, which Hiruzen happily took with yet another greeting.

This time it was a wolf doll with grey fur.

Hiruzen wondered if Haryi had been the one who had gifted the child with those dolls or if it was his female friend, Herumi.

"They awe thwee fwiends. The bestest of fwiends. Muuni had a cuwse on him that made him go mad once a month." Naruto started explaining, grabbing the mentioned doll out of Hiruzen's lap. "He was alone a lot and had no fwiends. But then he met Ponsu and Paafu and they didn't mind. They helped him not go mad each month and became his twuest of fwiends!"

"Oh really?" He asked with interest.

"Yes! The bestest!" The kid re-affirmed with enthusiasm.

"Indeed. It does seem that way."

"When I gwow up, I'm gonna be like them!"

"A noble objective, indeed."

He continued talking to the child, listening to several stories the kid told him about the three plush toys and several pranks they played on other unsuspecting people, probably other animals but the kid didn't specify when he asked, merely telling him that he could imagine them to be whatever he wanted. Usually they had a forth friend with them named Waamu, but his descriptions of said friend mentioned him as a coward who wasn't above using his friends for his own gain.

But just because he was listening to what the kid was telling him didn't mean he wasn't paying attention to his surroundings. There had been something weird about the room when he first walked him. A bit like genjutsu but different. More of a sort of persuasion technique that wanted to make him leave the room. Every time the caretakers came to see if he was doing well it was very clear they did feel compelled to leave the room as soon as possible, even if it meant for Hiruzen to discover something they didn't want him to.

The jutsu, however, had no effect what so ever on the old Hokage other than let him know what its intention was. Hiruzen certainly didn't feel compelled to leave at all. If Haryi had placed that jutsu on the room, Hiruzen certainly had to question why. Shouldn't he be trying to get the caretakers to care for little Naruto?

He put that aside as he continued to investigate what else he could get from the room. He quickly noted that the only toys there were indeed the ones he'd sent, both for himself and on Jiraya's behalf, others he was pretty sure had come from Kakashi and others he had always assumed had come from the caretakers but was now doubting it to be the case. The three plush toys seemed to have too good a quality for what the caretakers could afford, and that was not counting the customization. There was also a set of blocks with hiragana for him to pile and write with, once more with too good a quality to their wood and paintjob. There was also some electronic toys that were meant to teach a kid to talk that looked like they were purposefully broken and a xylophone which looked very battered but that had clearly been mended very carefully a lot of times.

Noticing him staring at the broken electronic toys, Naruto took it upon himself to explain.

"The woman that likes to offew you tea bwoke them. She does not like it when I make noise. But I don't. Not weally. She nevew notices when she's not in the woom. It's only when she comes in and sees me playing with them." He explained sadly. "She also twied to bweak my metal clinking thing," He pointed at the xylophone. "But Yonii-chan fixed it the fiwst time. She didn't know how to fix the othew ones. Ryi-chan fixed it the othew times the woman bwoke it again but he's not as good." There had been a considerable effort on the toddler's to pronounce 'Ryi's' name without botching the 'r'.

Hiruzen was beginning to understand why some sort or persuasion jutsu had been placed on the room. If that was the only way to keep Naruto's possessions from being broken, then he couldn't help but agree.

"That woman was being very mean, indeed. But who are Yonii-chan and Ryi-chan?" He asked. He was pretty sure those weren't the names that the Shades had presented them with.

"Those awen't weally theiw names. I just can't say them wight." Naruto explained with a frustrated frown on his face. "Theiw names awe just too weiwd!" The soon to be two-year-old shouted out.

Hiruzen chuckled at the toddler's antics, agreeing with him both just to pacify him as well because he also partially agreed, considering it hadn't been the first time he'd been told that.

"Well…" Naruto continued, surprising him. "Ryi-chan's name is not as weird. Just hawd to say. But I can say it! But it would be unfaiw to say his wight and not Yonii-chan's. But I'm going to say it wight when I gwow mowe!"

"I'm sure you will." He agreed again, entertained and endeared by the toddler's enthusiasm.

Finally, the visits from the caretakers began to come with smaller intervals each time and he decided it was probably time to leave.

With all that he had seen that afternoon, he was pretty sure he had to alter some things. Naruto seemed healthy enough, and an all around happy child. Even his speech was a bit more advanced than what he'd expected. The kid did say that 'Yonii-chan' and 'Ryi-chan' talked to him a lot so that might be why. And while Hiruzen may had felt reluctant to agree with the shades on whatever jutsu they had used to keep the caretakers away from the room, not only was said jutsu weak enough that they still could go inside if they truly needed to, but also, seeing the state some of the kid's toys were in because of the female caretaker, he began to wonder if an ever stronger jutsu wouldn't be necessary.

What truly worried Hiruzen was that Naruto's original caretakers were making sure to do everything to keep him away from other children and that could mean that he wouldn't develop the social skills he would need in the future.

Hiruzen pondered over the best way to go about all the separate parts in this issue to better secured them all. Starting by Naruto

Naruto was the Jinchuuriki and, despite the old Hokage's best efforts, it seemed that a S-rank secret had been revealed to the population. He wasn't sure if the Shades knew about it, since he made sure that nothing ever reached close enough to the orphanage, but his ANBU had already squashed several attempts at attacking the baby in his first two months of life just because of that fact.

There was also the fact that he was Minato's son. Hiruzen knew that Haryi had been at the scene of Minato's death, but he wasn't sure if he knew the baby the yondaime had used was his own or thought it was just some random baby. That was the second S-Rank secret. Minato had several enemies from the war and a innocent child couldn't defend itself.

There was also the fact that the council wanted his life as much as the population and it was probably one of them that revealed he was the kyuuby's vessel, and also the fact that Danzo wanted to take the child under his wing which, considering the things that the Shade's had revealed, was probably not a good idea.

But the fact was that, by leaking the secret to the villagers, the council had also made him a favor. Now, because everyone knew where the kyuubi was, it meant that no one could kidnap Naruto as easily. And even if they did snatch up the kid, there would be too many eyewitnesses for said person to be safe. The fact that there had been attempts on attacking the kid had also given him an excuse to have ANBU watching out for him, which made it even harder on any would be kidnappers.

Then onto the other issue at hand: the Shades.

When it came to the civilians, the Shades were both revered as heroes, but also sometimes used as the boogie man to scare children into behaving. As for the shinobi, their reactions were evenly split, with some either hoping they were allies to the village but kept as a S-Rank secret or downright not caring about their existence so long as they didn't harm Konoha and it's inhabitants in any way, and others who feared they were waiting for the right moment to strike.

The Council itself was pretty pessimistic about them, wanting Hiruzen to either make sure that he brought them under heel or to kill them off completely, despite their heroic acts.

The two Shades themselves seemed pretty fearful of Danzo's influence. While they were known, they weren't exactly Naruto-level known. And no one knew their faces either. While they could have tried to gain popularity in order to make it harder for anyone to kidnap them, that also would come with a risk, since they would have to actually show themselves to be successful and anyone could take advantage of that.

That was why they were pretty secretive and constantly on guard. That way no one could take them by surprise and they did seem to have experience at hiding themselves completely from society. For them to officially join Konoha, they would have to be guaranteed protection, especially from Danzo. They had also expressed their distaste at being used like weapons. Somehow, they seemed to think that simply joining the village the normal way might not be enough to deter a man like Danzo. Unfortunately, after what had happened with Orochimaru, Hiruzen couldn't really blame them for their fear, especially since the body of their friend had been stolen.

On a positive note, they did bring some perks with them. Herumi seems to have knowledge of potions and others that might help in the hospital and even in interrogation whereas Haryi was already acting as caretaker and guard to Naruto. And with great results. That's not mentioning any other things they might be able to do.

At last came the Council itself.

While most of them were still pretty vocal regarding Naruto, they were beginning to be more and more vocal about the Shades as well. Hiruzen wasn't concerned with the citizens in regards to the Shades, nor his shinobi. They would be far quicker to accept the Shades into the village than they would accept a baby jinchuuriki, that much was for sure. Not, the problem was really the Council. Even if Hiruzen assured them that the shades were now allied to him, he would be asked to show definite proof of it. In failing to do so to their satisfaction, which usually had very high standards from the start, they would demand that the Shades be blackmailed in some way that would assure them of their total devotion.

It would be complicated juggling with so many things at once without anything falling on the floor, but he would do it. He had no choice but to do it. Failing would mean failing the village in one way or another.

Two days later he found himself alone in his office, waiting for Kakashi and the Shades to arrive. Kakashi arrived first and they waited together for a while before therew as a knock at the door. Kakashi opened and Hiruzen saw nothing. Kakashi seemed to know something was there, though, as he moved to the side as if to let someone in. He then closed the door shut and locked it. Once it was locked, the two Shades appeared and if having removed a veil from on top of them. No, wait! They had removed a literal veil from on top of them. Haryi was still holding it, though he seemed to be struggling to shove in inside a bag he had around his neck.

"Thank you for receiving us, Sandaime Hokage-sama. It's an honor to talk with you without… any of the prior circunstances." The woman, Herumi, said with a bow.

The raven haired boy at her side followed suit, but in a way that showed he clearly knew nothing about formalities.

"No problem. It's a pleasure to have you here. Besides, it is only my duty as Hokage to ensure the safety of my citizens." He replied back.

The fact that he was implying that he was protecting his citizens from her didn't go over her head, unlike with her companion. He could tell by the flash of knowledge on her eyes. The man simply looked confused at supposedly being addressed as a villager of Konoha, which hadn't been the case at all.

"Look, can we please cut the chase, sir? I know pleasantries are nice and the politically correct thing to do, but I really just want to solve the issue as fast as possible. I promise that as soon as things settle down I'll come by for tea or something, but I promised Naru-chan that I would read him a story." Haryi interrupted.

"Harry!" Heromi shouted out in indignation. Hiruzen took notice of the differences in pronunciation from what he and Kakashi called him by and how she called him.

"It's ok. I understand better than he knows. I've had children too, after all. But he is indeed right, we have a lot to talk about and it is pretty useless to delay it with pleasantries." He conceded, there was no need for deceit this time. He did understand what taking care of children meant, and he had, at the time, a wife that took care of most of it at the time, something this youth didn't have. At least not someone he would trust with the kid, it seemed.

"Here's the thing…" He started and slowly explained the precarious situation they were all in.

They confirmed they had pretty much reached the same conclusions as he and had hoped he knew of any way to help them.

"As a matter of fact, I do think there might be a way, but it won't be fast." Hiruzen said at last. "Herumi already offered enough to prove herself valuable without the need to take a life. All she needs to do is prove she can back her claims. Can you, my dear?"

"Yes! I have some of the potions I mentioned with me right now." She was quick to assure.

"Great, that saves us time." Hiruzen commented.

"And as for me, sir?" Haryi asked.

"You, Haryi, will need to gain the loyalty of all of the clans if you want to have a chance against the Council. It will also build your reputation enough so as not to be so vulnerable anymore. For that You will need to help each clan in some way. Both the kind of help that only magic can help and the ordinary kind. It might even be demeaning at times since some of the clans view their clan as above the others. But if you succeed, your safely will be practically guaranteed. There's nothing greater than having the loyalty of every clan in Konoha."

"I understand, sir." He said. "And as for Naru-chan? Will something be done about his living conditions?"

"Depends, are you willing to keep taking care of him?"

Haryi looked as if someone had slapped in the face with a fish, so shocked that he was.

"Would the council even allow that?" Haryi asked.

"Considering you have been the one taking care of him all along, I don't think they have the right to complain, especially since they had been the ones to suggest the orphanage in the first place. As far as I'm concerned, the only thing they should even be discussing is how much they owe you for our hard work." Hiruzen said and he caught a glance of the quick grin that had crossed the boy's face at his words.

"So long as neither of those favors don't involve death." He said slowly, as if both unsure if it was real, as well as suspicious.

"Then we have a deal."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd like to apologise in advance if it seems that Hermione is more useful to Konoha while Harry doesn't, but you have to remember that Hermione is pretty brilliant in several subjects and did manage to brew polyjuice potion during her second year in a bathroom. Harry, on the other hand, has as his strongest traits his flying skills and his defensive/offensive magic, which while useful for missions, would eventually lead to him having to kill someone, something he does not want. It's Hermione's variety and booksmarts that get her a look of points in favor.
> 
> This in no way means that Harry is useless, just that he has to find a different way to use his skills and, maybe, learn new ones to compensate.


	5. Chapter 4: Musings of a Future Clan Head

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hermione deals with the council bullcrap

**Chapter 4: Musings of a Future Clan Head**

* * *

_Hermione's POV_

Getting used to the way things worked now was both easy and hard as far as Hermione was concerned.

After two years of living in the Forest of Death on a concealed camp, constantly researching both time-space related jutsu and adequate substitutes for the more out of the ordinary ingredients for several kinds of potions, all while remaining as hidden as possible from Danzo, had certainly affected the way she acted to no small degree.

Half a year later and she still felt uneasy just for crossing the street without the cloak, let alone all the other preventive methods she used to employ. She felt so vulnerable. Yet she knew, for once, that no one would dare touch her.

They hadn't gone public right away after the deal was made. First, the Sandaime wanted them to quietly establish themselves before going to the Council. If they had already garnered enough support before then, the Council couldn't really do anything against them. With a full one hundred percent support, Danzo certainly would never be able to put his hands on them. Well, at least not easily.

For her part, Hermione shared a few of her potions recipes with the local hospital, specifically the ones that didn't need the use of a wand and magic in their making and that would need to be mass produced to be useful, which she wouldn't really have that much time to do. Those included: the Pepper-Up potions for the common cold, which, really, wasn't urgent enough for her to waste days on mass producing; and the Blood-Replenishing Potion, because in a ninja based village, blood loss was of pretty common occurrence, almost as much as the flu, to be honest.

She kept the recipes for the Burn-Healing paste, Essence of Dittany and of Skele-grow to herself, both because they weren't as commonly used and she could easily maintain the stock filled with ease, but also because she needed to still be useful and irreplaceable as a potion maker.

She also worked with the Yamanaka clan on several potions that could help in therapy like: the Dreamless Sleep potion, for victims of recent traumatic experiences who might have trouble sleeping; the Draught of Peace, good for anxiety and helpful for those suffering PTSD; Doctor Ubbly's Oblivion Potion, renamed as simply Oblivion Potion, which was remarkably good to heal people who were attacked mentally, either via genjutsu or even via the Yamanaka's own clan Jutsu; and an Elixir to Induce Euphoria, which was great to treat depression.

She had initially intended on keeping all the recipes for the psychotherapeutic potions to herself but, two month after the deal was set, since by then it was already known that Harry was 'helping' all of the clans with whatever they needed, the Yamanaka's were quick to plead for him. In the end she was persuaded on giving them the recipe for the Oblivion Potion, much to her distaste. She refused to allow them access to any other recipe, though. Last thing she wanted was a botched psychotherapeutic potion going wrong and someone getting irreversibly hurt. The Draught of Peace, in particular, was of major concern to her, since it was an advanced potion that was easy to get wrong and could lead to irreversible coma. The Yamanaka's took her concerns to heart, though it was clear they would have liked very much the have more of a stance when it came to those potions in specific.

Last but lot least, Hermione was also working for both the T&I department, as well as the ANBU, providing them with Veritasserum and teaching them all the possible ways that someone could circumvent it's effects so that they could counteract them in interrogation. She also added a few mild poisons that were unknown to that world and wouldn't kill the victim, as well, surprisingly, as a few love potions with the express promise that they wouldn't become of common use, only for missions.

She had seen how much Ron had been affected by one of those before, and he wasn't even the original target. She was also well aware of Voldemort's mother's story. She knew how dangerous and manipulative those potions could be. She made sure that every single bottle she would make would constantly be accounted for, including having the user's file a document every time they used it so as to make sure they were only used for missions. She also made sure that it's illegal use would be punishable, considering it was a mind-altering drug and it made the victim unable to give informed consent and it would still be rape if used for that purpose.

They were quick to agree to her terms, especially when she threatened to start making potions that would leave the men limp for live in retaliation to the men, and another that would make intercourse feel painful forever in retaliation to the women. Anyone who might have considered less than impure thoughts about the love potion was thoroughly chastised and had true fear impressed on them. Not a single person accused themselves, though. Hermione liked to think that it was because they were all taking it seriously from the start and never even considered using it in that way.

She, however, knew she had probably put the scare into some of them at least with her threats but because they were ninja they didn't show it. There was no way not a single person had considered using it for their own gains if just for a fleeting second. She just liked to think otherwise, that was all. She wasn't blind and knew better than that.

In no time she became invaluable to the village. Her wait of two years was justified with secret negotiations and research for suitable substitutes for certain ingredients that were non-native.

Honestly, Hermione couldn't take the credit for finding replacements. It was mainly due to two specific books she had brought along. One detailing how all the potion making ingredients, plus some more, reacted to each other and how their cut affected their effectiveness and use. The other one, though, was a experimental book made by a muggle born wizard that tried to combine magic and science together. He had devised a simple little spell that would correctly identify the components to an object right down to it's molecular level, which was very much needed for replacement gathering. Thank god she had all those rarer ingredients at hand. The only think that was harder to recreate were ingredients that were magical in itself like those derived from dragons, unicorns and those alike them.

Thank god that she found out a way to imbue some materials with enough of her magic in a way to replicate the effects of unicorn and Dragon derived ingredients. She could only do it if the magical potential for those ingredients was low, though. Some had to use Harry's magic for a higher magical potential, especially some of the 'darker' elements, due to him having been an horcrux before and having remains of Basilisk poison on his veins. Having Phoenix tears on his blood stream also helped too in other ingredients.

Still, his limited help in potion making wasn't enough to earn his stay.

On those months that followed their deal Harry had hardly slept at all. He split himself between doing tasks for some of the more open-minded clans and taking care of Naruto, who still lived with those awful people that abused him because Harry still didn't have enough of a standing to go public and take him under his wing.

Hermione had gained enough of a standing to be able to walk the streets with ease. People recognized her and appreciated her work. After she started producing and selling the potions, it had been only a matter of time for the Council to get wind of her. An week, actually. That was all it had taken them even though by then she hadn't interacted with anyone but the hospital staff to provide some potions and teach them how to make others. How that had happened, she had no idea and had been pretty startled by it.

She had to quickly get a hold of the T&I and ANBU departments, as well as the head of the Yamanaka to present them her potions. Thank god she had prepared several vials of all the potions she decided to sell to them before she even started her work at the hospital. If she hadn't, she wouldn't have been able to secure enough of a social standing with some very important people of Konoha to have her relative safety guaranteed.

As soon as they'd heard about her, the Council insisted on having her meet them under the pretense to discuss her citizenship. They were probably hoping to catch her off guard by having an escort showing up just as she left her work at the hospital.

They hadn't been expecting someone who had been forewarned and had sold her potions before she even decided to go to the hospital for more potion-making lessons. Thank god for Kakashi.

She had been startled , wondering why he had landed in front of her with his ANBU mask on and while she was strolling the streets under the invisibility cloak. He had a little pug with him, probably the one that had sniffed her out. He'd informed her of the Council's knowledge as soon as he knew and she cut her leisurely stroll short. She hadn't been expecting the Counil to move so fast, though. She thought they might have waited for the following day at the soonest. She hadn't expected for an escort to have approached her that very same day. Thank god she is diligent and cautious.

So when she reached the Council meeting, she wasn't too startled. A bit nervous, to be sure, but mostly confident enough from having thwarted them.

Another thing the Council hadn't expected was for her to has knowledge of politics and being great in argument-fencing. Her knowledge of the law wasn't a recent development. She had learned them as soon as she managed to read the language with enough proficiency just in case they had to defend themselves in court.

She wasn't phased by the Council's claims and arguments leveled against her.

They questioned her intentions? She calmly and serenely replied she intended on staying in the village from then on.

They interrogated her about the events that had unfolded during the Kyuubi incidents and even before then? She lied through her teeth and 'explained' to them that someone had butchered a time-space jutsu and had accidentally transported them to another place and they had been cautious because, though they weren't affiliated with any hidden village, that wouldn't keep the village leader at the time from being suspicious about their presence there.

They asked her about where she was living all that time? She gave a vague answer, implying subtly and politely that is wasn't any of their business.

They probed her for her loyalties? She stated that her loyalties laid on her companion and his intended adopted charge and was currently proving to the Hokage her loyalty to the village as well, which wasn't supposed to have gone public so soon since she had just gotten enough mastery on her clan's potion making to be useful (again, another lie instructed by the Hogake for her to use).

And it was then that they found out her contributions to the village beyond the hospital potion-making classes and potion selling. Their questions quickly changed their tune from suspicion to interest. A sort of creepy interest that only Danzo had shown before then.

They pressed her for details on her companion? She told them he was currently proving his loyalty to the village but said details were confidential until his worth was proved and she wasn't at liberty to discuss them. But it was obvious they wanted to know more personal details about him as well, including if he was single.

They grilled her about her so-called clan? She fenced back with information on a unknown bloodline that had never been affiliated with any hidden village before and had become pretty diluted meanwhile, that included unorthodox medicines aside from a kekkei genkai that used a secondary energy aside from chakra and stated that was all they had to know about the clan since everything else was clan business and, as a soon to be instated clan, they had a right to their secrets. Though a bit disappointed in the secrecy, it wasn't something new to them since they had a lot of other clans with their respective secrets as well.

They quizzed her about adhering to a sort of Clan Restauration Act? She claimed her clan hadn't even proved themselves worthy of adhering to the village in its entirety yet and even if they had, they would be far too busy with everything else related to actually instating the clan to even consider starting 'propagating' the genes, if that was what they were concerned about.

They questioned her about any other members of their clan? She revealed she had no idea if there was anyone else left but sincerely doubted it and would only be able to detect her bloodline by gallivanting after news of unusual demonstrations of powers that weren't chakra based, which she didn't intend on doing.

They asked for the clan name? She admitted that her clan had become so widely spread that no one shared last names anymore and the original clan name had been lost to time,she also added that she and Harry would later decide what name to go by. She knew they were trying to trace her clan origins but there was no clan to be found. Not on Konoha, not on anywhere else in that world.

They asked for the clan symbol? She didn't bother about it too much and sketched the Deathly Hallows' symbol just to shut them up. The only change she added was drawing the line symbolizing the Elder Wand as having a blank gap at its center to symbolize it being broken in half.

They tried several times to verbally corner her into doing what they wanted, in this case marrying soon, but she outmaneuvered them every single time. At last she interrupted them by noting it was getting pretty late and subtly implied they were wasting time she could be using for the better of the village. The remark went mostly unnoticed, but Danzo frowned in distaste at her so at least the person she felt most distaste towards knew exactly how she felt about him.

After that one encounter, Hermione spent the rest of those six months quite at ease, even if she was still weirded out by it. She saved enough money to buy a small compound, enough for her to live with Harry and Naruto once Harry's trials and tribulations with the clans were finally done and, by the time Harry had approached her on the Yamanaka's behalf, she had managed to completely furnish it from top to bottom.

As for Harry. Those six months weren't exactly easy for him. Sure, the first month was quite calm. Most clans were still pretty distrustful of him and didn't want to rely on an unknown person and the one who didn't feel that way about him simply thought themselves to be above whatever powers he might have. Admittedly, when it came to physical fitness, that was definitely true. He wasn't stupid so as to deny that. But they also didn't know what Harry was capable of as of yet so they couldn't just stand there and judge when they had no idea about the best way to defend themselves against him either.

The funniest bit were the Hyuuga, so convinced that Harry had never wandered into their district because they hadn't seen him yet. Oh, the irony. Right after they had turned down Harry's help, Hermione couldn't help but sneak into the Hyuuga compound and hex their flowerbeds as punishment. They never did find out why their flowers were coming out as strange looking as they did. They assumed they had gotten the wrong kind of seeds though were equally as baffled as what sort of seeds they had gotten that was capable of creating flowers that resembled a gigantic, cartoonish cow's snout, complete with horns and everything.

The first clan that decided to finally request help from Harry was the Akimichi clan.

One member had gone to the hospital and had seen Hermione eating a lunch Harry had prepared and was intrigued by the cultural differences in the food.

Harry had always been a fairly good cook because of how much the Dursley's imposed on him since childhood. Fact was, if there was no need for some sort of posturing on the Dursley's part, like showing off Petunia's cooking prowess to extended family and business associates or going the extra mile to celebrate Dudley's and Vernon's birthdays and accomplishments, the cooking was always done by Harry, the exception being when they had all been on forced dieting. And, of course, the Dursleys would stand for nothing but the best so Harry had to get good pretty early on.

Of course, Hermione hadn't found that out while they'd been on the run. Harry couldn't exactly make a scrumptious meal for the three of them with so little food, since they'd been unable to splurge money freely. But ever since things had calmed down in the village after the dimensional travel, and Harry had gone back to cooking, his skill began to show. He'd even learned a few of the 'fancy' recipes from Kreacher that time they had stayed hidden at Grimmuald Place. Sure, the house elf refused to actually let Harry do the cooking, but the instructions had clearly paid off, as she'd come to verify for herself.

Since Harry wasn't exactly looking to open a restaurant in the future, in fact it was quite the opposite, he freely shared recipes with the Akimichi clan and went a step beyond by helping them devise a few 'fusion' recipes too. He even learned a bit about baking from watching the Akimichi members, something he had no prior knowledge of, considering that Petunia was the one in charge of cooking for celebrations, which included all the cakes.

Neither Hermione not Harry considered that task to be enough to earn a favor with that clan but the Akimichi seemed to think otherwise and even spread word to their two closest clans: the Nara and the Yamanaka. A few of the members of the clan even developed a carefree friendship with the green-eyed man.

The Yamanaka's were next, but only after having been barred by Hermione's reservations regarding her potions. Though that act hadn't earned him any spectacular merits with the clan like the recipe on had with the Akimichi, it definitely opened the door for more tentative approaches on their part. Hermione theorizes that part of the reason the Yamanaka members became more open to Harry was because they'd seen just how willing she was to rip out a new one to Harry as well as them over the potions and had noticed it was genuine and not a farce. They were perfectly aware that the only reason they even had the chance to get that one recipe was entirely on Harry's pleading for them. Where it not for that, Hermione wouldn't have given in.

By the end of the first month a Nara member decided to approach the male wizard. Hermione knew immediately he was the head of the clan, just like she had known the other members from the other clans were also the clans' heads with a few high-ranking clan members in the mix. Harry remained in the dark about it, not really too concerned with clan politics and more focused on doing the best he could. Hermione knew she would have to deal with all the clan politics crap if they ever made it official.

The difference in this encounter when compared with the others, though, was that Nara Shikaku came all alone. All he requested was a game of shogi, but he demanded that the game be played back at the wizard's home, not his own. Harry didn't really want to give into that demand because of security reasons but had eventually accepted. By then Hermione was already guaranteed to have some semblance of safety and was placing enchantments on her new property. As for Harry himself, he wasn't attached to the campsite to the point of considering it his home. Sure, he would miss the certainty of the place they had lived at for two years, heading to three, but it still wasn't home.

The Nara head was pretty tense when he saw where Harry had taken him via Apparition. He was also pretty disturbed by the transportation itself, even with Harry's warning. Hermione had decided to stick around that day just to make sure the ninja didn't try anything.

The man was pretty surprised to see a massive snake defer to the green eyes wizard, doubly so when Harry explained that he had a deal to buy candy for the snakes in exchange for safe passing and a certain amount of safety for their camp. Apparently the snakes knew of a teen that had snake summons and at times would let her summons eat some of her sweets. Apparently dango was popular among snake and snake people alike. The clan head seemed to recognize the description the snakes had given, but made no comment. He also mentioned that, despite the wizard's cautions about the size of the snakes, who were at least eighteen feet long, those weren't exactly the biggest snaked he'd even seen.

Hermione knew Orochimaru summoned snakes and had heard rumors of the size they could grow to be, but had never seen first hand just how big. With the Nara's nonchalance, she couldn't help but grow worried over what that could mean.

Hermione watched as the two men finally began to play after the typical pleasantries. She saw how the Nara head not only 'casually' glanced around the magic tent, taking in ever single detail in view, but also steered the conversation during the game into very telling subjects. Well… telling for those who knew just the tiniest bit of psychology. She knew he was assessing her friend and wasn't too surprised at that. The Nara's, especially that family branch in particular, were well renowned for their intelligence and capacity for strategy. The man quickly picked up on the fact that Harry was feeling pretty emotional at playing the game and had eventually managed to get him to confess that Ron had been the one who liked playing. Hermione left after that confession and, by the time she had calmed her grief enough to act normal once more, Harry had already lost spectacularly and the Nara head was already getting ready to leave.

Like the Yamanaka, that one game had not earned Harry their favors but it had clearly opened some doors.

While playing Harry had accidentally mentioned the Imperius Curse as well as Leggimency and Occlumency in regards to the most known Yamanaka techniques so it wasn't long before the clan called on him once more.

That time they had asked Harry to demonstrate the Imperius Curse on one of the weaker ninja, probably just in case Harry 'tried something'. Though reluctant to use the only one of the Unforgivables he'd managed to preform repeatedly without problem, especially now that the war was over, Harry did it for the sake of their future. According to him, the young ninja, that was completely unaffiliated with the clan, was quite baffled at finding himself break dancing. Harry explained to them that a strong-willed enough mind would be able to resist the curse, which prompted the whole clan demanding to give it a try. Surprisingly only a few managed to resist the spell at the first try, but soon they all caught along the trick to do it.

The head also tried to get Harry to allow him to use his mind justu to test Harry's occlumency, but not only was Harry completely against having anyone else ever inside his mind, he also admitted he was never very good at the discipline in the first place, much to their disappointment. That didn't deter the Yamanaka head to try and talk him into it from time to time, but he always respected his no each and every time, hoping the next one would have the young man changing his mind on the matter. The one thing they insisted on, however, was that Harry kept training their ninja, especially the ANBU, on resisting his curse after they had found that the member that had learned to resist him were even harder to control with other mind controlling jutsu.

Harry wasn't pleased by the use of the Unforgivable curse, but he did it, so long as he was never requested to demonstrate or use his other ones. That garnered not only the favors from the Yamanaka clan, but also from the other departments involved on the training program.

Having learned of this fact, the Kurama clan also requested training due to their overwhelming kekkei genkai, hoping it would create some sort of control over their splintering personalities so that the new personality created by their special genjutsu wouldn't take full control. Though only a few member actually did activate their kekkei genkai, it was so overwhelmingly strong that they had a hard time with it. The training apparently helped to a point, but Harry revealed to Hermione that he was pretty sure that Occlumency would have proven a far more valuable tool.

Harry heard and even seen a bit of what that power could do to its user. So, resentfully, Harry took the Occlumency book Hermione kept with her and began once more practicing for their sakes. He also started learning a bit of leggimency, just in case.

One thing was for sure, now that Harry didn't have a splinter of a soul constantly tearing down his metal barriers, it was far easier to practice the art, though he had no way to know how successful he was without a leggimency master attacking him. Another thing that also helped him keep control over his emotions, as Hermione was quick to point it out to him, was that he wasn't going through puberty anymore either.

Slowly, bit by bit, the clans began relying on Harry. Only the two biggest clans remained determined to be stubborn to a fault, and those were the still arrogant Hyuuga, and the prideful Uchiha.

To be honest, Harry could have been done with the clan appeasing two months ago if it weren't for those two and, being two of the most revered clans in the village, especially the Uchiha, Harry would definitely need their support but neither of them were willing to give him a try.

What was worse was that Hermione felt useless in what help she could provide him with.

So she kept on producing her potions and resolutely refused to officially instate her clan until Harry finished his tasks, as well as any matchmaking attempts on the Council's part, and kept studying clan politics and all the policies that came along with it. Harry should probably be the clan head, but both of them knew he didn't care for politics. She just hoped they didn't have too much of a backwards thinking when it came to female clan heads.

…Well… even if they do, since when do I and Harry do things the easy way anyway. Hermione thought as she finally bought what would be their clan's compound in the future to come. She was mad at the two clan's stubbornness, but she knew that sooner or later they would need Harry in some way or another. She had to believe that. And she was pretty sure he would deliver. She just knew it!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> admittedly, not my best chapter


	6. Chapter 5: 'Lucky' Break?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> part 1 of the hyuuga/kumo incident

**Chapter 5: 'Lucky' Break?**

* * *

_Harry's POV_

Christmas. Harry used hate Christmas. All the times he had to standby and watch as Duddley got all the presents. Heck, even his uncle and aunt got presents! Even Vernon's fat sister and her dog got presents whenever they happened to spend the holidays. Everyone but Harry.

There were the few odd times Harry got one single sock or a button as a present but he didn't really count those.

Then Harry found out he was a wizard and went to Hogwarts and suddenly Christmas became his favorite time of the year. For the first time he had presents. For the first time he had someone who _wanted_ to give him presents. He would forever be grateful for Mrs. Weasleys kindness and for how Ron's family basically adopted him in almost every sense of the word aside from the literal one. The Christmas at Grimmuald place was still his favorite. Everyone had been there.

Then he didn't celebrate Christmas during his seventh year because Voldemort finally made his move and seized the Ministry. He had far more pressing issues like running from the Death Eaters and surviving while on the road, unsure of what to do next.

And then he lost the chance of celebrating Christmas.

Konoha had no Christmas celebrations. The village did have a small-scale celebration for the winter solstice, but nothing major and definitely without the usual sense of family holiday. The First year in Konoha neither Harry nor Hermione had celebrated Christmas. They had still been to deep into their depression to really consider celebrating. Christmas really wasn't the same without Ron.

The second year they hadn't celebrated because Harry was busy with his tasks and so was Hermione. They had made the deal with the Hokage that fall, Hermione waited a month to brew as many potions as she could before presenting them to the Hospital and having as many backup potions for the ANBU and T&I departments just in case. Then, a week after she'd started working at the hospital the council had summoned her. After facing the Council, which she described as meddling and nosy old coots, the Akimichi clan finally invited him to a cook off, since one of the members had seen the food Hermione was eating at lunch. Two months after the deal was struck the Yamanaka clan finally approached him as well and things started snowballing from there.

Among all the shogi games with the Nara head, the occlumency training, which Hermione also started, the cook offs with the Akimichi, the Imperius training with the Yamanaka and Kurama, the puppy-sitting from the Inuzuka and, at times, dog-sitting from the sole Hatake member, bug hunting in the Forest of Death for the Aburame, among all the other menial tasks for several other clans, Harry had completely forgotten it.

He was now over his third year mark living in the Elemantal Nations, most clans had accepted him and, though he still had to be careful walking the streets, he was frequently invited to the clans houses. There were several clanless shinobi interested in meeting him too, especially the Anko teen, who had eventually heard about his parseltongue abilities, but, not having his place in the village fully secured, he kept avoiding meeting any clanless shinobi. Even if there were some he might have felt inclined towards meeting, he knew that if he made an exception to the rule, others would demand that he make more and more exceptions to the point that the rule became ineffectual. Then there was the chance the Danzo sent a few root members that way.

And all of this because two clans refused to meet him at all.

Normally Harry wouldn't have given a shit about not being accepted by everyone. Heck, he'd dealt with almost everyone hunting him down before and was fine. But this time he had a very strong reason why he needed those clans' approval. The caretakers had finally started letting Naruto out of the room.

Usually that would have been a good thing, except that they blamed the kid for every thing that went wrong and even what didn't. The other kids, the younger ones, while initially open to the idea of befriending him, had soon taken notice of the other people's reactions to Naruto's presence and the disapproval they looked at them with whenever they played with the young child that they decided it was best to avoid him too. Naruto was heartbroken by that. And Harry was starting to see the Orfanage getting ready to have enough reason to kick the out in the streets. The day of Naruto's birthday, after the Hokage had left, the caretakers had kicked the kid out to the streets and, if Harry hadn't been waiting for his opportunity to go in, he wouldn't have had enough time to pick him and hide him before a group of drunkards who had payed the caretakers to leave the kid outside came to beat the child up. The ANBU were too busy with the Kyuubi Vanquishing festival to notice the group and wouldn't have made it in time to help.

Harry took the child with him to the Forest of Death and sent a message through one of the smaller snakes to Hermione so that she would tell the Hokage what had happened. As far as Naruto was concerned, that was the best Birthday he'd had. The now three-year-old had loved seeing all the forest creatures and playing with the snakes and the other beasts Harry had somehow tamed. Harry on the other hand, was more and more aware that his Naru-chan wasn't safe staying at the orphanage.

It had now been two months, going on three, from Naruto's birthday and, despite his many attempts at communicating with both heads of the clans to establish some sort of deal between them, neither of them seemed too interested in talking. They were just as bad as the Purebloods from the wizarding world. So long as it didn't benefit them in a way they could perceive with their tiny little minds, they wouldn't give the time of day to someone else, uncaring if they truly needed their attention or not.

After the Hokage was warned about the caretakers, they were immediately replaced with two others. They seemed to act more pleasantly, but Harry knew that was a ruse, a façade. While the previous caretakers were content on ignoring Naruto's existence and trashing his 'noisy' toys, these two, apparently also suggested by the Council with enough backing that the Hokage couldn't overrule the decision, were down right verbally abusive towards the child. The wards still worked, keeping them from being in the room for too long, but since Naruto had started to be encouraged on leaving it to 'play', he became more vulnerable to the verbal attacks those two would inflict on him.

Whenever Harry wasn't doing any tasks or trying to convince two stubborn clan heads to meet him, he was busy sending spells towards the two foul caretakers whenever they tried to pick on his kid. It didn't even matter what kind of spell it was. From the simple Confundus and similar in nature, to what Harry qualified as mean little pranks that could still be passed of on bad luck or strange bouts of clumsiness. He hoped the bastards would learn to not talk bad about Naruto by association but so far no such luck.

Anyway, this Christmas he'd been planning on getting Naruto away like he had for his birthday but these new guys made it difficult on him to do so. With a bit of sleeping potion from Hermione they did manage to sneak him away to the Forest of Death where they'd decked the tent with Christmas paraphernalia. Naruto was pretty excited about the new celebration and seemed to like it far better than his birthday just on principle. The whole family thing and how Harry explained that family didn't have to mean related by blood. Neither him nor Hermione mentioned Santa Claus. Harry had never believed in him and Hermione had pointed out that since they were the only ones celebrating that holiday, it might send mixed messages to Naruto about how much the other kids were 'naughty' or 'nice'.

Naruto embraced the sense of gift giving, family and charity quite quickly and insisted on sneaking to the Hokage tower and leave some sort of present for his 'Jiji' to find the next morning.

The Sandaime was quite amused by the gift, according to Hermione, though he was pretty curious about what Christmas was, which she was all to happy to explain. Aside from that, Harry had no idea about what he'd really thought of the holiday.

It was now the 27th and Harry was trying really hard to come up with another way to reach the clans. He surmised that it might be easier to approach the Uchiha since he knew Uchiha Mikoto had been friends with the red-haired woman that had died in his arms and that Harry was pretty sure was Naruto's mom. He was coming up with a plan of approached when Hermione burst into the tent with such haste that he thought for a moment he was under attack.

"Harry!" She gasped as he tried to calm his startled heart. "Something happened! The Hyuuga! They might need your help!"

"What!?" He asked, trying to comprehend what he was hearing. "What happened?"

"You remember that envoy from Kumogakure for the peace treaty?"

Did he remember!? He'd been practically restricted to the forest since the Hokage didn't want anyone to know about his existence outside of the village until his citizenship was granted. And even Hermione had her movements restricted for the past few days.

"Why? What happened? Did he had a drunken fight with a clan member?"

"Worse! He tried to kidnap the heiress of the clan!"

"WHAT!?"

"The clan head killed him last night. Now Kumogakure sent a message saying they want the clan's head's head!"

"What the hell!? Then he shouldn't had tried to kidnap a child!" Harry bellowed at the injustice.

"I know! Bloody git! But that doesn't change the facts. Sarutobi-san asked us if we could somehow help? Cause if we don't, Hiashi's twin brother is going to take his place for him even though he wasn't even the one killing the fool!"

"How are we supposed to help!?" Harry asked. "We don't have a time turned and even if we did it only works on stable time loops. That's what you told me at least."

"No. we can't change what happened. Only what we can do next. Come on, Harry!"

She rushed Harry to get dressed before Apparating the two of them to the Hyuuga compound where the whole clan, sans children, a few ANBU and the Hokage himself were waiting. There were also what seemed to be a few Uchiha from the police force examining something in the bushes that Harry felt in no way compelled to investigate. Best case scenario it was just proof from where the envoy had passed by during the kidnapping but the worst case scenario it was the guy's body in whatever way he'd been killed.

" 'Morning, Sarutobi-san." Harry greeting a still a bit sleepily, though the adrenaline was starting to catch him up to the situation. "How can we help?"

Once again, the order of events was explained to him, this time far more calmly, and he was better able to assess the situation. He pondered for a bit on how to proceed. They didn't have much time. The demand from Kumogakure detailed that they had two days to send the body and only that long to give the man enough time to say goodbye to his family and nothing else.

Harry asked a few more questions about how the things were supposed to happen normally in this sort of situation. Hermione tried to ask for more diplomatic ways to solve the issue to no avail. At last, Harry opened his eyes and eyed the nervous looking people around him.

"I think I might have a plan. But it's going to be risky and it might not work. Are you willing to listen?"


	7. Chapter 6: Cloudy with Chances of Ninja

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> part two of the Hyuuga/Kumo incident arch

**Chapter 6: Cloudy with Chances of Ninja**

* * *

_Harry's POV_

Harry was nervous. Of all the things he could have been doing at this exact moment, one of them being sleeping snuggly on a far more moderate climate, he instead had to spend several days with barely any sleep, if any at all, accompanying a dead body while invisible. Ok, sure, it wasn't really a dead body but it didn't make it any less creepy. Worse was having to remain perfectly quiet all of the time. Sure, with a variant of Muffliato, that silenced not only his voice but also the sounds his body made, in effect he was bound to not be noticed by the Kumogakure escorts but what was the use talking at all when no one could hear you, that being the precise point.

Not to mention how tiring it was to be constantly covered with the cloak. It was either that or the Disillusion charm and both had their draw backs. For example, while largely useful, in the sense that you didn't need to fear the wind stripping you down from your cover, the Hyuuga had certainly been able to 'see' him with the Disillusion charm while they hadn't with the Invisibility Cloak.

Things had been fine while they were still on Fire Country. The escorts back then were still from Konoha and were perfectly aware that he was there and talked to him whenever they were sure there were no spies from Kumo around. It had remained that way while they were crossing the Hot Springs Country but the escorts from Kumo met them in the border from Hot Springs Country to Frost Country and Harry had to make due with his silence while he heard the men escorting the body having inane conversations.

At least things were going great so far. Harry could barely believe his risky and possibly deadly plan was working out so far.

When Harry had gotten to the Hyuuga clan grounds, Hiashi's twin brother, Hizashi, was pretty determined to slit is stomach open for his brother, all the while insisting that no one tell his son. It didn't take a genius to see just how many things could go wrong just from withholding such fact, let alone the whole mess with the Kumo assholes feeling vindictive over a kidnapping bastard.

Of course Harry hadn't know that when he got there but it really didn't take long to find out. Fact was: by the set deadline they had to present a dead body they either belonged to Hiashi, or was similar enough to pass off as him like Hizashi and when no one with a good plan stepped forward, the twin seemed just about ready to grab the nearest tanto just to close the topic with a precise stab to the gut.

Thank god the events on the potions class from sixth year were pretty memorable. Horace Slughorn was pretty attached to an outdated version of the sixth hear books and the only reason Harry was so good at brewing potions that year while Hermione, who always got it perfect in the past years, failed, was because Harry had gotten a book with notes on the margins correcting the process.

That was how he remembered the Draught of Living Death.

If Hermione, who now had better potion books than that one, brewed it, Hizashi could take it and look like he had actually died, then his body would be taken to Kumo and Harry would somehow snatch it back before they could try to autopsy it.

Then it would be a matter of Harry Apparating with Hizashi back to the compound and having Hermione brew a Wiggenweld potion to revive him. And then deny they ever had the body of the envoy to begin with or that he'd disappeared from the morgue. A quick disposal of the body would ensure that it would all remain a mystery.

There were, of course, a lot of flaws with the plan, but they were no better than having Hizashi pass of as the clan head. The Cage Seal was common knowledge. The moment that kumo saw: 1 – The seal itself; and 2 – That somehow the clan head of the Hyuuga was twins with the dead one they had but bore no seal of the branch house; they would know for sure that they had been duped.

The seal on the dead body alone probably wouldn't sell it. They might have assumed that Hiashi might had had it done before killing himself just to protect the secrets of the clan's dojutsu. But combining that with the fact that the 'new' clan head was identical but bore no seal like he should have had Hizashi been the one taking over the leadership of the clan instead of him…

As far as Harry knew, the Kuma shinobi weren't that stupid.

So, while this plan was the farthest thing from perfect, if everything went right Hizashi would stay alive and that already made it lots better than their ridiculous self-sacrificing plan. After all, it's not like Hizashi's death was absolutely detrimental. It wasn't like he was a Horcrux that needed to be destroyed before challenging the 'big evil' and make him die permanently.

His plan, though received with disbelief, was approved merely on the fact that 'it wasn't like they had anything to lose if it failed to return Hizashi alive and well after all, considering they had just been planning his demise anyway. So Hermione quickly rushed to get all the ingredients she needed for the potion while Harry asked for a debriefing on what to expect since he'd never been in Kumo before.

It was clear to see that the Hyuuga weren't taking him seriously and some were even whispering mocking statements about him, the exceptions being the clan head and his twin. He ignored them as he listened to what the Hokage Sarutobi had to say.

As soon as they realized that the Sandaime was implying that Harry would be right next to Hizashi the whole time, even after entering the Lighting Country, some clan member couldn't help but express their doubts in his capacities. The Uchiha that still hadn't left the crime scene, but were beginning to, decided to stick around and see what would happen with curiosity.

In a normal day, Harry would have said it wasn't any of their business how he'd do it, so longs as he did. But this wasn't a normal day. Harry had been forced to wake up in the middle of the night, to then get his brain cells working in time to avoid unnecessary family angst, and then he had to deal with all that disdain. And all of that while he was literally at the end of a rope where Naruto was concerned because of said snobbish 'I'm-better-than-you' clan, along with another clan with very similar opinions on him.

So, because of all of those things at the same time, Harry snapped. He took his cloak from his mokeskin pouch and donned it, disappearing in front of them much to their dismay. Immediately all the dojustu from both clans activated. Their conclusion upon not seeing his chakra coils? He'd 'shunshined' away. So Harry resolved to get back at them.

AS quietly as he could he walked around one of the clan members that had decided not to become a shinobi and shoved him. He took the sounds of confusion from the spectators to move to another clan member and pulling on his robes upwards in a fast movement, displaying a very cure pair of boxers with little pink hearts all over them. Feeling still a bit mischevious, Harry then grabbed a doll that a child, probably Hinata, had left behind and held it right side up, pretending she was possessed.

Some of the more skittish members were already freaked out about it, considering they still didn't see any chakra coils. Only the clan head, his brother and some of the others remained calm, if somewhat curious.

He presented the clan head with the doll, which Hiashi cautiously took, and took off the cloak.

"Does this answer your bloody question, you git? If I didn't have to be here right now I might just have told you to go to hell and never return. Believe me, the last thing I want is to cater to arrogant snobbish prats like you. Way to be a bad example of a clansman to your clan head. Really, what a bad representative. I'm tired from a long exhausting day! I'm frustrated because I need to earn both yours and the Uchiha's favors and neither of you even so much as considers listening to what I have to say, let alone requesting help! I'm desperate because the longer it takes for me to get a hundred percent approval from all the clans the more likely it is for my kid to be emotionally scarred for life because he has to stay at that horrible place where everyone hates him! Then I come here because my presence is requested by the Sandaime himself, not you, to find out that I have to come up with a plan on the fly, despite not being at my very best due to previously mentioned tiredness, or else the clan head's brother is going to off himself and leave his child all alone. Then I finally come up with a plan that, though it's filled with more holes than a emmental cheese, is still much better than a equally hole riddled plan already suggested, with the varied that the dude doesn't have to die and, despite all this, I still have to deal with that attitude!? Pal, I get it, you have a superiority issue. Well guess what! That big ego of yours wasn't the one that came up with a better plan so I'd appreciate it if you either shove it with the attitude or sod off to be 'majestically' broody and judgmental someplace where you won't interfere with the plans that might just keep this bloke's head on his shoulders just as it should be." Harry snapped.

The Hyuuga clansmen started commenting on his 'rudeness' but the clan head interrupted.

"While your way of presentation is crude and overly informational about your private matters, you do have a point. You have come here for the sake of sparing my brother from a terrible fate and it is beyond rude to have my clanspeople making such comments about you. Were you a shinobi this would have been cause for disciplinary measures. As it is, you'll have to accept my apologies on my clansmen part alone." Hiashi said.

Harry took a deep breath to release the last dregs of frustration that hadn't been released with the rant.

"Thanks. I too have to apologize for losing my temper. Usually I have more control than this but these past few weeks haven't been easy on me. Still, that doesn't justify losing my patience. I'm sorry." Harry said back and Hiashi seemed to approve.

"Your apologies are accepted." He nodded. "One of your comments did interest me, though. I wasn't aware that you have a kid or that the child was staying at a orphanage."

"I don't." Harry would have left it at that but, since the clan head was at least attempting to be social he decided he should too. "I'm going to be adopting him as soon as I can get my citizenship approved without having to be worried about being fought over like a piece of meat."

"I see. Is that why you have been trying to establish connections with the clans?" Hizashi asked this time.

"Yes. The only way to make sure no one in the civilian council will try to take advantage of my existence is to gain the approval of all the clans, hence why I've been trying to set an appointment with you or asking if you need help with anything, since I'm honor bound to help the clans until I get their approval. Within reason, of course."

"Is that so…" Hiashi pondered non-committedly.

Harry decided to close the subject for now. At least he had exposed his concerns to one, maybe two of the clan heads and it wouldn't do to push too far too soon. Besides, he had to worry about actually keeping Hizashi alive to have the smallest chance of succeeding.

Basically he would have to pull a miracle.

It took some time but eventually Hermione returned with the Draught of Living Death, along with a few other potions at hand.

"Here Hizashi-san. This one will make it look like you are dead. Don't worry, I'll start on the cure right away to reverse the effects as soon as we're done here." She reassured and then she turned towards speaking in English to Harry. "Here's a few Polyjuice potions for you to take. Get some of the kidnapper's hairs and your good to go."

"Erm… Hermione… Why would I need these? I'm going invisible, right? Probably with a disillusion charm underneath the cloak for extra safety." He replied, also in English.

"Well, of course I know that. But you see, in this book, the 'Muggle Sciences and How They Apply to Wizardry and Witchcraft' that I told you about, it explains that, while you are transformed using this potion, your DNA automatically shifts to that of the person you chose. If you were to collect samples of your hair and blood before turning back, you would see that, since they would no longer be supported by your magic, they wouldn't shift back. Of course you would need to separate them with enough time for them to lose their inherent magic completely before turning back. It's quicker with hairs. They only need about a minute or two to lose the magic flowing in them. Blood takes a lot longer, though. There are so many spells that rely on blood just because of it's power alone."

"So… you want me to transform into the bloke… because…" He started, still feeling a bit confused. A flash of clarity suddenly gave him the answer. "Oh! You want to incriminate the Kumo guy! Will that even work? Considering their response, they seem to be pretty sure of loyalties to their village."

"It's either that or they accuse us of taking Hizashi back and might figure out that he wasn't dead from the start, I know. But it's not like the previous plan could keep any of them from finding out that the twin they took wasn't the head of the Hyuuga clan either which might pot a strain on any peace treaties we might attempt to form."

"True." Harry pondered.

"What if you took the hair of another non-Konoha ninja? That might work."

"So long as no one knows their dead yet and the body can be quietly disposed of."

"Good. I'll ask Mr. Sarutobi." And with that Hermione went back to Japanese. "Sarutobi-san, I have a request to make."

While Hermione talked privately with the Hokage, Harry started compiling a list of things he could take with him for food that didn't have strong scents or that didn't need to be heated with one of the ANBU shinobi, as well as tricks on how to be as quiet as possible and how to disguise his body scent. Hizashi delayed taking his potion to be able to listen to the changes and adaptations to the plan.

Finally, the Sandaime sent one of the ANBU to retrieve some hairs and they were delivered to the wizard in a plastic bag. Harry was still feeling a bit put off by the inner workings of the Polyjuice potions that Hermione had read from her book. That meant that there wouldn't be the need of keeping someone alive to have enough hairs to impersonate them for long periods of time. They could simply rip their own hair and transform back.

Harry couldn't help but feel grateful that the Death Eaters hadn't found out about that. Moody, especially, wouldn't have survived the year after Barty Crouch Junior replaced him in Hogwarts.

Fortunately, Death Eaters didn't dabble on avant gard literature that had the tinniest bit of muggle in it, so they would never have found it out. However, it was still pretty lucky that Hermione had a book on it. Shedding blood while under the effects of Polyjuice was a good way to lead the fools on a wild goose chase.

After taking a few more cues on the typical behavior of the ninja he would impersonate, along with his clothes, Harry was ready to set off.

After a few preparations, along with Hermione brewing a few other potions to keep him awake and energetic when he was with the Kumo delegation, a small group of shinobi were gathered and left the

That lead back to the present moment.

The Kumo shinobi hadn't suspected that the dead body wasn't a dead body, evidenced by the fact they didn't feel the need to shove a kunai through his heart. They didn't let their guards down, however, and Harry made sure to keep the modified Muffliato spell on to prevent them from noticing him.

After a few days they finally reached Kumogakure and, after the Raikage and a few of his advisors confirmed that it was indeed the body of a Hyuuga, they left for the morgue. Apparently, they didn't really care if the body was of the Clan head or not so long as it had the byakugan. They didn't even really know much about the clan members, the only one really knowing being dead.

At the morgue a shinobi scientist inspected Hizashi's eyes, confirming that they were sealed by something, and found out the Cage Seal. She seemed to think she might be able to undo the seal before inspecting the eyes once more and left for supplies. In her own words, even if it didn't work she would have least tried. Harry took the chance that she left to ingest the Polyjuice potion and undid the disillusion charm, putting the cloak back inside the mokeskin pouch.

He got dressed in his new identity's clothes and waited for the woman to come back so that she could witness a missing nin from another village stealing away the body. As soon as she saw him she threw a slew of senbon at him and only his quidditch reflexes kept him from becoming a pincushion. Still he was cut by a few and he didn't mind since it provided tracking teams with the wrong scent. He would just use Essence of Dittany on them later. He took hold of Hizashi's shoulder and quickly Apparated away from the morgue to a small alcove he had found on the way to Kumo. He could have Apparated directly on the meeting spot at the clan compound but decided it was best to wait for the effects of the Polyjuice to disappear first. For now he just needed to make sure no one would find him so he used his magic to cast the same spells he used while on the run from the Death Eaters.

As he waited for the hour to pass he finally cooked a far more satisfying meal. The effects of the potion disappeared mid meal and Harry dressed in his own clothes again before finishing his dinner. That done, he took hold of Hizashi once more and Apparated away once more, this time to his final destination. Immediately all of the Hyuuga nearby tensed before seeing how had just arrived. Then there was a call for the clan head and for the 'miracle worker'.

The next few hours were fuzzy at best as far as Harry was concerned. The effects of the last energy potion he had taken for the sake of keeping himself awake passed and his body immediately demanded to be caught up on all the sleep he had lost. That was the draw back from using that potion. That was why he couldn't keep himself awake to see if everything turned out ok. He tried to but he had skipped on a lot of sleep hours and ended up falling down from exhaustion even before Hermione could get there. He never felt someone stopping him from falling flat on the ground. He never felt someone holding him and taking him to another room. He never felt the cover being pulled on top of him as his possessions were put next to his head. He was too far gone, dreaming of days gone by when everyone he cared about was still alive and celebration Christmas at Grimmuald Place, except that Naruto was there too, along with his own parents.


	8. Chapter 7:Of Deliberating and Family Reunions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> final part of the hyuuga/kumo incident  
> Hiashi's POV

**Chapter 7:Of Deliberating and Family Reunions**

* * *

_Hiashi's POV_

Meditating was something he usually found calming and relaxing. And after the last few weeks, Hiashi definitely needed it. In the end, he could only feel relief that both his daughter and brother wound up alive, but that didn't make living through all the process that lead to the 'happy ending' any easier.

First the kidnapping in itself. Finding his daughter's room devoid of the child had been heart wrenching and, admittedly, he hadn't been thinking too rationally when he set off to pursue the kidnapper. So, when he had finally caught up with the man he didn't hesitate to kill. Never mind finding out how he'd gained entrance or knowledge on the Hyuuga compound. And killing him felt so good after those panic filled tortuous minutes he'd spent following his trail.

The news had spread fast and the remaining members of the delegation fled. Apparently, they still had enough time to send a messenger hawk to Kumo before they left, though. That very same night the demands from the Raikage were received. Immediately his brother had agreed to go in his place and the clan elders had quickly approved. Honestly, the way things were going, if the foreigner male hadn't shown up, his brother would have died that very same night.

His thoughts on the foreigner were… well, not overly positive to be honest. Not that he didn't recognize that he had a point when he snapped at his clanmembers. Hiashi himself was a bit annoyed at all the gossiping taking place. They were a noble clan not a bunch of cackling hens! They should have behaved with a lot more dignity.

But while Hiashi recognized Haryi's anger as righteous, he definitely disapproved of the means with which he had displayed said anger. That definitely didn't make a good impression on him. At least the young man had apologized right after.

Hiashi, however, was intrigued by his rant about an abused kid. Hiashi had no knowledge of any of the orphanages in Konoha having issues with child abuse or neglect. Initially he'd pondered if, perhaps, it was because a foreigner child would be viewed with disdain. If it was a singular child it was quite possible that said abuse would go unnoticed. But the young man denied being related to the child, merely wanting to adopt the kid. It was quite curious.

Hiashi knew it had to be a singular case of child abuse and not something generalized to all the children. If it had been generalized, the Council would have shut down the orphanage in an instant. It would do Konoha a disfavor having a known child abusing orphanage under its wing. Still, what could cause every adult in the facility to turn against a single child the way Haryi described? Perhaps a rare and misunderstood kekkei genkai? He later asked Sarutobi-sama about the child the 'magician' was so interested in but he deflected the subject masterfully, which raised quite a few red flags.

The way that he'd changed subjects meant that he wanted to deviate the attention from the child which was odd to say the least. Why couldn't an already existing clan temporarily adopt the child until the foreigner could do it himself? While he hadn't been interested in taking a temporary ward himself, he knew for a fact that there were several clans who would be more that willing to help the foreigner out at the drop of a kunai.

It was beginning to be quite grating hearing all the praise and comments about the foreigner in every Clan Council gathering. It was particularly grating because he himself was starting to feel curious about the odd young man everyone was talking about and curiosity was beneath a Hyuuga. Especially if the subject of said curiosity was comparable to village gossip. As far as Hiashi and anyone else from the Hyuuga clan was concerned, so long as the Hokage accepted the man into the village, then that meant he was an acceptable presence. Hiashi certainly didn't feel the need to investigate the man if he was already accepted as widely so as to verify his loyalties. Especially if the Nara and Yamanaka clans had already accepted him. Investigating further than that was merely feeding the gossiping and nothing more.

Of course, that also meant that the Hyuuga weren't that interested in interacting with someone that didn't even belong to a clan or was even considered a Konoha Citizen.

Now Hiashi definitely would need to revise his initial decision. Especially as far as that silver cloak was concerned. A cloak that could give its user complete invisibility was unheard of, especially when it came to making a person invisible to the eyes of a Hyuuga. There were jutsu that some shinobi used that allowed them to be 'invisible', but a Hyuuga would always be able to see them because of their abilities to see the chakra coils.

So Hiashi would need to see the cloak in action once again to see if there was a weakness in his clan's eyes that was being exploited or not. That definitely earned that young man a request from the Hyuuga.

Still, that hadn't been the time to approach Haryi about it. There were far more pressing things afoot. Hiashi had seen how the potion that the foreigner girl had given his brother took effect quickly. He himself had tested his brother's pulse and felt nothing. He wasn't even breathing. The only thing that assured him that his brother was still alive was the seal still scrawled on his forehead. Though the Bird Cage Seal was commons knowledge among experienced shinobi, not many knew it disappeared after death. That was because, since they insisted on arranging things for their own dead members, regardless of them being main or branch members, their bodies were delivered just as they had looked like upon their dead which, for a branch member, always meant they were wearing their hitai-ate on their forehead, covering the vanished seal.

The few people that knew about that and that weren't clan members, were always monitored, just to see what they would do with the information.

So Hiashi wasn't that surprised that all the non-member people present had believed the ruse. And why the male foreigner believed that their previous plan of handing his twin brother seemed to be so hole-riddled. No one outside of Konoha knew exactly what the seal looked like so it wouldn't be too surprising if the Kumo shinobi couldn't catch on to the fact that the 'new' head had no seal in his forehead.

Hiashi hurriedly asked his retainers to dress his brother in a kyokatabira and he, himself, adjusted the tenkan on his forehead to cover as much of the seal as possible. He rested assured in the fact that, even if he was still alive and didn't have his brain and eyes turned to mush, the seal would still prevent his byakugan from being studied. The mere act of the eyes' removal would immediately trigger the decomposition of the removed eye.

But none of the outsiders needed to worry about that, merely about how to keep his brother alive.

Things were set hurriedly and the Konoha missive with the body departed not long after. Things calmed down in the clan compound after that but Hiashi had been anything but calm through those weeks, hence all the meditation that he had incurred in. He was relieved that his daughter was safe and sound with him and, though the fact that plans had been made to keep his brother alive had placated his grief, he still couldn't help but feel anxious about his chances of really surviving such a crude plan. It was surprising that the plan really had worked.

Haryi had just appeared in the compound an hour ago with his brother and Herumi had been summoned right away to take care of the potion that made him look like he was dead.

Without warning, just as Hizashi was being taken to another room to wait on Herumi's arrival, Haryi stumbled and Hiashi had to rush to his side before he fell down. With one use of the byakugan, Hiashi realized that he was pretty low on chakra. Surprising since he didn't really use any according to what the other clans said on the clan gatherings. Then again, the chakra levels of a civilian would also be low if he didn't sleep for a long time as what seemed to be the case of the foreigner in front of him.

He ordered for another group of clan members to take him to a guest room for the night, together with his belongings. He knew it was inevitable that someone tried to get too curious with Haryi's possessions but Hiashi hoped that, with his order to leave them with their rightful owner, no one of his clan would boldly try to snoop right after. That being said, he wasn't overly surprised when some of his retainers eventually left the room complaining about the weird looking pouch the lad had with him all the time. t was in a shinobi's nature to be somewhat curious, after all, even if it was unbefitting of such a noble clan.

Thankfully the foreigner was knocked out when the men in charge of him tried to snoop and no tasteless (albeit true in this case) rumors would start.

That was when Hiashi had decided to meditate for the day.

He had just managed to get some semblance of calm once more when Herumi-san arrived, looking very much like she's gotten dressed in a rush, eager to comply to her duty. Hiashi followed her to the room his brother had been placed in, hoping very much that her expertise in potion making served them well in reviving his brother.

Hizashi was once more dressed in his clothes. Hiashi could only feel relieved by that since seeing his brother dressed in a Kyokatabira had been unnerving to say the least. If things had gone wrong, that would have been his last mental picture of his brother: an unconscious, dead-like countenance, dressed to match, being escorted out of Konoha to play the part of a dead body, despite Hiashi knowing with every thing in him that he was actually alive. Until he saw his brother awake once more, Hiashi simply could not relax from his suppressed anxiety.

Herumi-san gently prodded his brother's jaws open and carefully tipped the new potion into his mouth, making sure not to choke him with it. The effect was almost as fast as the one to make him look dead.

In an embarrassing display that he swore to himself would never again be repeated in front of a third party ever again, Hiashi bear-hugged his brother as Herumi-san watched with an amused and understanding expression. He was quick to realize his mistake and quickly separated from his brother once more, clearing his throat in embarrassment.

He hadn't acted un such an undignified manner with his brother in front of a third person since they were kids. Even his brother seemed surprised.

"I am pleased with your swift recovery, brother. Do you feel any lingering side effects from the potion? Do you remember anything from when you were unconscious at all?"

He could tell by a twitch in his brother's facial muscles that he was holding back a snort and knew he would get hell from him after Herumi-san left the room. It would probably be the first time in a long while too.

Things had gone downhill for them ever since they'd grown old enough to understand what the marks in their forehead really meant. As children they hadn't really payed it much attention. After all, it wasn't as if Hizashi needed to be 'disciplined' that often. Quite the opposite. It wasn't until he earned his hitai-ate that he began to understand the differences and only when they reached their teens did he understand it to the full extent. The chasm between the two of them began growing more and more as the year had gone by and Hiashi hadn't even realized it until it was too late.

It wasn't until he came face to face with the very real possibility that he would lose his brother forever that he snapped out of whatever was wrong with him that made him believe that everything was fine between the two of them. Really, how could he have done that to his brother? How could their relationship have fallen that low that it was almost shattered?

But by the time he had realized it, weeks ago, it was too late to make any sort of amends. All he could do was hope these foreigners would be able to keep his brother alive after all. Ironic that it would take him almost losing his brother to realize how much he missed their relationship from before. The sort of closeness only twins could share. And for this small moment as he brother awoke he had forgotten all the resentment that filled the chasm between the two of them and breached the distance.

…In front of an unrelated person…

So undignified.

He really needed to talk to his brother as soon as possible but for now he needed to do some damage control and dispatch the female foreigner for the sake of privacy. Unfortunately, his hasty questioning of his brother interested Herumi-san since it regarded her potion making skills and she stayed.

"Everything is alright, brother. I must admit I was confused and surprised since it seemed like no time had gone by at all when I woke up." Hizashi affirmed.

"Good." Herumi-san commented with a nod. "That is how it's supposed to work. By the way, Hyuuga-sama. Do you know about the whereabouts of my brother perchance?"

"He fainted after making sure everything was alright. Exauhstion, if I'm not mistaken. He is staying in on e of the guest rooms for the night." Hiashi said calmly and then, hesitatingly added. "I extend to you the offer of staying in another of my guestrooms so that you can attend to him if need be."

"Thank you, Hyuuga-sama. Normally I would decline such a generous offer but, on the risk of seeming rude, I can't do anything else but accept since my friend is here and in such a state. I would prefer to be on standby if anything happens to him."

"I shall have someone arranging for the guestroom next to the one occupied by your friend." He commented, unsure of what to make of the foreigners' relationship.

The fact that they didn't refer to each other as siblings or any other family-type of moniker meant that they weren't related. They were clearly intimate to some emotional level too but he didn't feel like the relationship crossed into a romantic area. He might be wrong about the last one, though. It wasn't like he was an expert on romance. His wife certainly liked to point out that he was quite the opposite, in fact, coupling said statement with a list of is clumsy and awkward attempts at courting her in his youth, not that he'd ever admit to any of them. Especially now that he was the head of the clan.

"Thank you, Hyuuga-sama." Herumi said politely before following the group of people assigned to her.

Hiashi watched the female foreigner leave and then turned to his brother once they were finally alone. For a few moments the awkwardness of not knowing how to start a meaningful conversation after so long was felt. I had been easy when they had the weight of Hiazshi's life hanging over them. It felt as if they had so little time and too much to catch up with before he went. Now they were back to having a lot of time to catch up, the difference being that they both didn't know how to start. For several moments the silence remained but it was soon brushed aside as they realized they were both grown adults now and not teenagers. They should be mature enough to approach this in civilized manner.

"Brother, I believe we should talk. Really talk and not the typical detached small talk we've both grown far too used to in these past years." Hiashi started.

He knew that, being in an inferior position in the clan, Hizashi would probably feel reluctant on starting the conversation in case he'd interpreted this closeness wrong and was instead met with mockery. Not that he had, or that Hiashi would do that to his brother, especially now, but he had no way of knowing that. That meant that he, Hyuuga Hiashi, as the older twin, had to be the one to broach the subject and appease his worries. His only concern in that self-appointed position was his own utter lack of understanding on how normal siblings should behave.

The conversation that followed was long, drawn out and had several moments of pure awkwardness but, by the end of it, both twins were left feeling much lighter on an emotional level and actually felt like real brothers once more. This time Hiashi was determined on not foregoing his family the way he had before, even if he had to pretend every time the Clan Elders were around just to keep his brother safe from scrutiny. Hizashi agreed to play along with that idea, his thoughts for once in line with his twin's.

They both retired to bed way later than was intended. When Hiashi joined his wife in bed, she merely smiled happily at him, guessing what had transpired and clearly approving. Despite having wasted half of his night away, that was the most restful sleep he had in a long time.

The next morning Herumi was awake as early as he'd expected from someone who worked with the hospital staff but Haryi-san was still in a deep slumber. Hiashi was also quite amused to find several of his clansmen sporting very exotic choices of clothing as well as eccentric hair-dos. Of course he didn't outwardly show his amusement, but he felt it none the less. His guess was that they had tried tampering with Haryi-san's belongings once more, something he later confirmed with the owner himself.

It wasn't until mid-afternoon that Haryi-san finally woke up. He still looked exhausted but seemed to be able to hold himself upright at the very least. Hiashi invited him and his twin to join him for tea. Of course, that meant they would be doing a tea ceremony and, though he'd expected to have to teach the foreigner how to properly do it, he was quite surprised that Haryi-san actually had a decent base on tea ceremonies. Enough to easily follow up on what a guest should do, at the very least, though his movements were still pretty clumsy. One of the other clans must had taught him, obviously.

Hiahsi mostly used the small talk that inevitably walked hand in hand with the ceremony was a means to gauge the foreigner better. He could tell his brother was doing the same, though he was mostly curious about the cloak the foreigner possessed.

Haryi-san was pretty closed off regarding his past and even his future plans. All that Hiashi could ascertain with accuracy was that he must had had a rough childhood, considering his protectiveness towards children and how children should be treated, he was at some point part of a war, having been part of it from a very young age, basically having been forced into it for circumstance he could not control, though he was pretty tight lipped about said circumstances, and that he was planning to adopt a kid that was having a childhood as rough as his had been, if not worse.

All in all, Haryi-san seemed like a nice enough person. He was also the sort of young man that would do anything to protect those that earned his loyalty, considering how he didn't hesitate on standing up for his partner, kid or even a few of his acquaintances that seemed to have developed into tentative friendships. Basically, he was the sort of man one would want as an ally. The only down side was that he seemed to be far too willing to give people a second chance and even save his own enemies. And that was a weakness in the shinobi world. He was far too pacifist. It was probably due to having been dragged to a war too soon? Some shinobi faced similar situations. Even the great Jiraya seemed to have developed a pacifist streak due to the war.

All things considered it was still a preferable alternative than to succumb to bloodlust or suffer for years with recently acknowledged condition of PTSD, formerly known as Shell Shock.

So basically, so long as Hiashi earned his friendship didn't deliberately pit the young man against another person, he would make a great ally. Unfortunately to be a ninja death and enemies were something that had to be dealt with constantly so he had no idea how to fit the youth into his plans.

Once the tea ceremony was over, they proceeded to the gardens where Neji joined then. Though he was trying to act formal, it was clear that the child held a lot of admiration for the man that had made sure his father returned home alive. Haryi-san completely ignored what was proper and indulged the child in a game while the two brothers observed. Soon other kids started joining, mostly branch members. Neji still remembered to act properly from time to time, but the young man seemed to be pretty disarming of such attitude, so it never lasted.

Finally Neji challenged Haryi-san's invisibility cloak, claiming that he didn't believe he couldn't see past it, so Haryi-san dutifully donned it. Neji quickly activated his Byakugan, along with the children around as well as the adult twins.

Just like before they could see nothing. The space the man had been in before was devoid of any detectable presence. Or so they thought at first.

Neji concentrated so hard that the bulging nerves around his eyes almost seemed to be about to burst open.

"I can see!"

"You can?" Asked the disembodied voice of the youth.

"Yeah. It's really hard to see it and I have to concentrate a lot but I can see a sort of shimmer. It's not really chakra, though, and it's really faded." Neji explained.

The adults drew near and tried to focus. When Hiashi was about to give up on testing it he finally spotted the slight shimmering his nephew had pointed out. It really was there! Not that 'seeing' the shimmer had any real applications, especially in a battle situation, since it needed too much focus. It was still good practice, though. Hiashi didn't remember the last time he'd worked his eyes so hard. It was probably a long time ago when he'd still been learning. Now all that Hiashi needed to know was if there was any sort of advantage to training the Byakugan using the invisible cloak in the long term, or if would simply strain the eyes and nothing more. Be that as it may, he would need the young man's cooperation to find out.

And to think he hadn't wanted to help the young man out and had believed he couldn't possibly be useful in any way. Karma sure like to make him eat his own words.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope I managed to portray Hiashi decently.


	9. Chapter 8: Playing Ninja?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Itachi re-learns how to be a kid?

**Chapter 8: Playing Ninja?**

* * *

_Itachi's POV_

Uchiha Itachi was annoyed. One wouldn't know just by looking at him, even among those claiming to know him well, but the tell-tell sign in the form of a slightly furrowed brown was very much present.

Ever since the Hyuuga incident, the Uchiha clan had become interested on the foreigner mage. Sure, no one would admit it in front of non-clan members, let alone actually being proactive and talking to the man.

They had tried to follow him home several times, but he must have noticed because, from what Itachi heard, he always lead them to a wild chase through the Death Forest. It was even worse when he donned the magic cloak and disappeared from sight. The Sharingan, much like the byakugan, seemed unable to see through it.

It was stated that he was once seen entering the 'demon kid's' window but, for all they knew, it could have been another ruse. Itachi, of course, didn't agree with it, but had long learned to keep quiet about his suspicions. Or convictions, for that matter.

But none of that was why he was annoyed. What actually really annoyed him was how his own father seemed to be willing to use his own children to spy on the foreigner. If it had been just Itachi alone, he would have been fine with it. After all, he was already a Gennin, even at age 8, so it would only be expected of him by his clan to be able to perform clan-assigned 'missions', so to speak. Sasuke, however, was only 3 years-old.

In a sense, Itachi could understand why father had felt compelled on including his little brother. According to a conversation a clanmember had overheard between the Akimichi head and the Yamanaka head, Haryi-san would be visiting the park with a child, supposedly a kid that he intended on adopting. What better way to approach the men unsuspecting then by sending kids to play in the area, after all?

So, reluctantly, and seeing no way out of it, Itachi agreed. Well… at least he could actually spend some quality time with his little brother for once and father couldn't complain about it, even if what should have been a carefree time spent in innocent playtime was marred by such unnecessary vigilance.

He arrived to the park early. That was on purpose. Sure, Haryi-san might not be a ninja, but it wouldn't do for him to notice them arriving after him and showing too much interest. He might, and with good reason, suspect they were following him.

He dutifully herded his brother towards the sand box and began aiding him in the construction of some sort of building. It was a full half hour before his target arrived. By then Sasuke had already completed a metropolis on the semi abandoned sand box and Itachi had backed off to a nearby bench, letting his little brother's creative juices flow freely.

Unlike many of his clan would, Itachi wasn't surprised to see the Uzumaki child. He had suspected it ever since the sighting of him entering the kid's room. The little blond was an authentic ball of energy, dashing towards the age appropriate slide at full speed.

Today the park was particularly devoid of visitors and the few that were there seemed to be from shinobi clans, probably parents that knew and didn't disapprove of Haryi-san's self-appointed guardianship of the kid. The few non-clan kids seemed to be out alone and too young to know about the kyuubi or were accompanied by babysitting genin teams from previously mentioned clans. Only Itachi and Sasuke seemed to be the odd ones out. That was probably why Haryi-san had chosen that day and that park.

What did surprise the 8 year-old Uchiha was the fact that the blond seemed to not know any of the kids there. Itachi had assumed his guardian would have had him meet the other clans' kids way before. Then again, he had to be very careful in sneaking the kid out without the orphanage knowing. This was probably the first time the kid had seen a park and, Itachi realized belatedly, he had watched the other kids using the slide before going there himself. In fact, he seemed to only play with what he had already seen the other kids playing with.

That, of course, meant that eventually he made his way to Sasuke.

"Hey! Watcha playin'?" He asked in a clear effort of trying to overcome the shyness that Itachi could sense in him.

"I'm jus' buildin' buildin's and stuff." Sasuke replied a bit shyly.

"You build all that!? Whoa! Can I play too?"

"Sure."

And with that the ice was broken. Itachi supposed he could try to join the little ones now and officially meet Naruto but opted not to when he sensed emerald eyes fixating on him. He forced himself not to look, even of he wanted to know what sort of expression the foreigner had in his face.

While he doubted that Haryi-san had suspected him of being a spy, it seemed that he was still overprotective to the point of ensuring that not even a 8 year-old kid had the chance of hurting his charge or, at the very least, say something hurtful to him, like many people were unfortunately inclined to do.

So, Itachi decided to hang back and let the two kids play for a while. After a while, Haryi-san stood up from where he'd sat on the grass and walked towards him.

"Aren't you going to play too?" He asked.

For a moment Itachi was confused. It took him a few seconds to realize that, indeed, the man was talking to him. After so long of having to act like he was no longer a child it was easy to forget that, on normal circumstances, he would have been playing just like all the other children in the park. Sometimes it seemed that Konoha was still trying to catch up with the fact that there wasn't a war going on anymore. Then again Itachi wasn't completely sure his father wouldn't be just as obsessed with having one of his sons being a genius even if there hadn't been a war just before.

All in all, the only time he actually played was when he was with his little brother because then it would be an acceptable action in his father's eyes. Sadly, he knew that once his father considered Sasuke old enough to stop with 'childish games', his role as his brother's playmate would end for good.

"I'm too old for that." Itachi replied. He'd tried for a smooth answer but instead it came out a bit tersely.

Haryi-san frown upon hearing that.

"Who in Merlin's beard told you that!?"

"Who is Merlin?" Itachi asked back, avoiding the question.

"A legendary powerful wizard. And whomever told you that nonsense should have his brains checked ASAP!" He then proceeded to mutter to himself, though Itachi's sharp hearing easily picked up on it. "An 8 year-old? Too old to play? What does that say for me who never got a change to find out what playing was until I was eleven?"

That surprised the young genin. While he had speculated that the young man might have had a rough childhood, seeing how protective he was of a neglected child, all the while completely disregarding the demon in his gut as if it wasn't of any concern, Itachi had never expected that little tidbit. Could a child really spend eleven years without being allowed to play? Even Naruto, as young as he was, got time to play when his adoptive wizard parent wasn't around. What kind of childhood did that man have that he had to reach a considerably genin approved age to be able to play? And something told Itachi that practice was definitely not only abnormal by ninja standards, but also wizard standards as well.

"That's it! We're going to play too!" Haryi-san suddenly burst out, clasping Itachi's hand and dragging him to the two toddlers. "Naru-chan! Can you believe this kid thinks that he's too old to play?"

"What!?" The blond toddler immediately replied in outrage.

"Tha's my nii-san." Sasuke informed his new friend.

"WHAT!?" Naruto's outrage increased. "Ryi-nii! We have ta fix him fas' b'fowe he becomes stuck like the mean lady at the… the… what's that place called?"

"Orphanage?" Haryi-san suggested.

"Yeah! That!"

"That we do, Naru-chan!" The wizard agreed. "What's our first order of business?"

"Uh… what does… 'owdew of business' mean?" Naruto asked while trying to enunciate the words, but still not quite managing.

"It means that I'm asking what will our first action be, in this case in order to prevent him from becoming like the 'mean lady at the orphanage'."

"Oh! Ok!" Naruto immediately understood before taking a more pensive frown. "We could stawt by the swings but he'd too big."

"There are swings for bigger kids too over there." Haryi-san pointed out and Naruto's eyes practically beamed.

"Cool! Can I go on the big swings too?" he asked excitedly.

"I'm not sure… There's a reason why you're supposed to use the small ones, Naru-chan."

"Aaawwww!"

"We… could take them in our laps…" Itachi finally suggested, though a bit hesitant. Still, his brother's hopeful gaze made it hard not to follow through with his idea by voicing it out loud.

This whole idea of him playing even though he was already a genin was so weird to him.

"Can you handle a toddler on your lap while you ride the swing?" Haryi-san asked with concern.

Itachi merely nodded resolutely and took a very excited Sasuke in his arms. The wizard followed suit with his blond charge.

"I hope my weight doesn't break the swing." Haryi-san muttered again.

"These are made for ninja kids. They are pretty reinforced due to the more… 'forceful' playing. They should hold your weight just fine." Itachi intervened, if just to ease the young man's fears.

"Oh! That's great!" Haryi-san sighed in relief. "You're pretty knowledgeable. I don't think I ever wondered how strong a swing was and why when I was your age." He complimented him.

"Thank you." For some reason, though he had been praised before for his accomplishments and was pretty used to hearing this sort of thing, it felt different when the foreigner did it and he caught himself feeling a bit shy over it. Not that it showed outwardly aside from a slight, barely noticeable, reddening on his cheeks. It felt a bit like when Shisui-nii-san talked to him, but at the same time different.

And with that, if for just a while, Itachi remembered what it was like to be a kid without the pressures of a clan on him. It wasn't a drastic change in is attitude. After all, Itachi had always been a quiet child that preferred observing his surroundings. But it was still noticeable for those who were watching carefully.

"It'll be lunch time soon." Haryi-san observed when they finally interrupted their playtime.

"Aaawww!" Somehow, for once, the thought of lunch didn't seem enticing to the energetic toddler. "Can't we play a little more?"

Sasuke 'hn'ed in agreement and Itachi couldn't help but feel a little amused at their antics.

"No can do, kiddos. We've already been here too long as it is. Besides, how will you have enough energy later without eating? Don't think I haven't heard a few rumbles from your stomachs, because I have."

They finally reluctantly agreed. Honestly, even Itachi himself was feeling very hungry from all the running. It was a surprise how the young kids hadn't demanded a food break before then.

"I think it's possible that it can be arranged for the two of you to play together again at a later date." Itachi said, cheering the two of them up instantly.

To be honest, he wasn't completely sure his father would agree but he was pretty certain this wouldn't be the only time he would be asked to approach the wizard in any manner and Itachi could always claim that he asked about his younger brother.

With the parting goodbyes done, Haryi-san scooped Naru-chan into his arms and took out a silvery cloak, draping it over the two of them, vanishing in plain sight. Itachi opted by not trying to use his sharingan to observe it. He'd somehow avoided the topic of his clan altogether while playing. He did hear the sound of muffled footsteps leaving the mark and there was a slight disturbance of the dust from each footstep he took.

It wasn't until Itachi was sure Haryi-san had left that he finally took hold of Sasuke's hand and started heading home. He hadn't walked more than a few feet out of the park when he felt a presence. It didn't take long for Shisui-nii-san to reveal himself to the younger Uchihas. Itachi wasn't overly surprised. He figured someone was bound to have sent an Uchiha do keep an eye on him and his brother, since they were the clan head's kids. Still, it was a relief to see Shisui-nii-san rather than some other clan member.

It did make sense for father to send him of all people, though. He was also considered a genius like himself.

"Had fun?" Shisui-nii-san asked with a teasing smile.

Itachi was well aware he hadn't kept his usual composure, so he couldn't help but blush a bit at that question.

"Let's go home." He shot back, trying to remain as composed as possible. At the same time his little brother betrayed him.

"Yup! We had loads of fun!" He said.

The walk home was the most embarrassing fifteen minutes he'd ever had to endure. Thankfully Shisui-nii-san would keep certain observations to himself in front of father. He was the only one in the clan he felt he could completely trust with his most vulnerable sides.

Now to deal with the beast… What could he get away with withholding from his father…?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is it for now as my multi fic extravaganza regarding _this_ fic. Now I only have one more fic to post, as ell as my fic list, and I'll be done.


	10. Chapter 9: A Game of Cat and… Snake?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay in posting this new chapter. I've been caught up with my studies and only now managed to get enough time to write and post a new chapter.. So, without much further ado, here's the chapter and stick around for the end notes.

Something was off in the Death Forest. She couldn't quite put her finger on it, but she knew it with the same certainty she knew her own name. It had been going on for a while but, for some reason, it was pissing her off now more than ever. Perhaps she was just hormonal, her time of the month wasn't too far off, or perhaps it was because of how long she'd spent without her usual escape of torturing information out of enemy shinobi, or maybe, just maybe, it might be due to the fact that her favorite dango shop just had someone buying them out of their whole stock for some stupid reason. Perhaps it was all of them together, but with especial relevance to the last one.

The last one was simply unforgivable! How dare whoever it was to deprive her of her beloved treats!?

So, she decided to investigate the dango hoarder, bitter revenge on her mind.

The first thing she realized was that the person responsible had black hair, pale skin and green eyes covered with round glasses. The store owners told her he never indulged in small talk with anyone so they never heard anyone calling out to him and, since they had to be discreet because of them catering to shinobi, they never asked him for his name either.

Then she found out that this shopping spree wasn't a one-time thing. It just happened to coincide with this one of her random visits to the shop when off work, made even more of a coincidence since she rarely was off work.

Apparently, he always came to get his mass delivery on dango every Thursday morning and the owners usually managed to recover from the sale by lunch time by making as many dango they could in a short time, so the sale wasn't noticed.

Now, Anko supposed she could wait until next week to catch him in the act, but she never was the sort to wait patiently, so she summoned some of her snakes and had them track the scent on the seat the man had sat in.

Somehow her summon seemed a bit hesitant before starting to lead her to her own favorite grounds to train on, leading to her current situation. She thought she couldn't possibly be even more surprised when a couple of giant snakes barred her path and seemed to have some sort of exchange with her snake. Not only that, but they also had a few sticks of her favorite dango with them that they were currently devouring carelessly.

Why the hell were there snakes eating dango!? Other than her own, that is. Who could have this much control over snakes that they could keep them from eating them long enough to negotiate some sort of deal involving delicious dango?

Whenever snakes came up, there were only two people that that could usually be applied to: herself and Orochimaru.

Now, she certainly wasn't generous enough to give up her precious dango but the thought of Orochimaru frolicking around in the Death Forest, offering dango to snakes was laughable to say the least.

After a short hissed conversation, one of the giant snakes left while the other stayed, watching over her like she would at any moment try to rush past it which… would probably happen, honestly. But still, they could have at least pretended for a bit that Anko wasn't that crazy. It would be nice if at least someone showed some faith in her…

Who was she kidding!? She loved the fact that no one, not even snakes, felt relaxed enough in her presence! It wasn't quite the respect she hoped she would get when she'd first got assigned one of the Sannin as her sensei. Definitely vastly different from it. But, hey, that's the closest a student of a traitor could get. If they couldn't respect her as a revered member of the shinobi forces, determined to prove herself worthy of her post, they might as well respect (read 'fear') her battle prowess and unpredictability.

Moments later, just as she was becoming impatient enough to rush past the snake a man walked from between the bushes. He fit the exact description the dango store owner told her. She had to admit that the man was a hunk, but she wasn't about to let the teenage hormones that were still in her body deter her from her objectives.

"So, you're the asshole that took all of the dango!"

The man frowned upon her accusation. He didn't appear to recognize her, so he couldn't possibly be a part of the shinobi forces. Only the recently graduated genin (or, as she called them, fresh meat) didn't not know who she was from all the shinobi task force. It simply was inevitable to meet her at least once. Even other hidden villages knew of her, if only just on bingo books. So, the fact that he didn't recognize her meant he definitely wasn't a shinobi.

That left civilian, and low level foreign shinobi that didn't have access to bingo books. The fact that the man didn't seem at all afraid of her like civilians tended to be, ruled the first notion out, but a low level foreign shinobi wouldn't have wanted to stay in the death forest long enough to know its lay out this well.

Then again, the man seemed to have a connection to snakes. Could he be a new student of Orochimaru's?

Before she could mentally exploit that hypothesis, the man retorted.

"I was under the impression that I was the man that _bought_ all the dango. If I'm going to be called a thief I might as well go back to the store and reclaim my money back. At least then I'd actually get to enjoy the spoils of infamy somewhat." He said a bit bitterly.

He seemed to be under the impression that the dango store owners had told Anko he'd stolen the goods… Interesting reaction.

Feeling the sadistic streak in her take over, she noted the resigned tone in his voice and wondered how to turn bored resignation into outrage and anger, and then how to break down that reaction into despair. This guy certainly seemed like he would be a tough nut to crack, at least when it came to breaking him down. Of course, that would just be using her playful methods and not her work ones. She was pretty sure she would have broken him pretty easily with her work methods, but where was the fun in that?

"So wat'cha doing here in the Death Forest? You do know this is a shinobi area, right?" She asked.

She doubted he was a civilian, but she might a well try to make him underestimate her intelligence a bit but pretending to assume he was.

"Pfft. You leader knows I live here." He said, not at al concerned and, though not entirely sure, she seemed to have sensed his words were true.

"Oh, so the Hokage knows you're here? Somehow that sounds doubtful." She continued. "What do you say about a little trip to the questioning cells? I'm going to enjoy playing with you!"

He shuddered at her tone of voice, but instead of the fear she had been expecting, she saw a glint of rage in his eyes before it was subdued.

"Sorry, but I'll have to decline. I'm too busy to add following a sadistic Bellatrix wannabe to an irrelevant interrogation." And with that said he disappeared with a pop before she could interpret correctly what he'd just said.

"Hei! Come back here with my dango!" She shouted once realizing he really was gone. "And who the fuck is that 'Beraturikusu' bitch you talked about?"

She, obviously, got no reply.

She tried to go past the guardian snakes, to no avail as even more gigantic snakes appeared to bar her way.

She ended up returning to the dango shop, who by then had managed to make enough dango for the costumers, seething on the insides at how easily she'd been rebuffed. But Anko wasn't one who took being denied easily, especially when dango was concerned, so she wouldn't be giving up just because of a minor setback.

The following days she kept waiting for the man to come out of the forest by setting a few of her summons as sentinels. They never did saw him walk out of the forest, but Anko could have sworn she'd seen him walking about in the village once before disappearing. If she hadn't know her summons were loyal only to her and seen the man disappear right in front of her she would have thought she was being betrayed in some way. Seeing that these tactics weren't working, she started paying more attention to the few times she saw a glimpse of him in village itself.

In a whole week she only saw him two times. Once around the hospital and the second as he was coming out of a window. The first time he hadn't seen her and since she had to do a double take herself, she ended up losing him, but the second time he definitely saw her. He gave her a look of mild animosity before turning in place and disappearing. It wasn't until he disappeared the second time around that she finally managed to place him in her memories.

She felt no use of chakra whatsoever. She might not be a sensor type, or chakra sensitive, but that doesn't mean she wouldn't feel when certain techniques used chakra and this definitely didn't.

That could only possibly mean one thing.

Shades.

She recalled having heard from Ibiki that the female Shade was working in the hospital, teaching the staff how to brew disgusting tasting but highly effective medicine and, additionally, brewing some sort of miracle serum that looked and tasted like water but had even the most hardened shinobi blabbing his mouth off. So far there was only one way to avoid telling the truth, and that was to convince oneself that the lie was the truth in the first place, which is harder than it sounds.

The fact that the man was one of the Shades didn't daunt her, though. She kept trying to follow him whenever she was off work, even if now it was mostly because she could tell it was annoying him. It became a game of cat and mouse to her as she found cleverer ways to track him down and had to find even cleverer way to avoid her whenever outside of the Death Forest.

To be honest, she was mostly bored. Now a days, torture was mostly used as punishment rather than ways of extracting the truth and it would remain that way until enemy shinobi started finding ways to counteract the serum. The vexation over the 'missing' dango had long passed as the man seemed to have realized her outrage had been over not having any dango for herself and started leaving a few just in case she passed by.

She supposed the snakes must have passed on her reasons, since she certainly hadn't talked to him about it. Either them or the dango shop owners.

A couple of months with this game going on passed by and she could tell the man, which she learned was called Haryi, was growing increasingly annoyed. She even had a few higher ups telling her to proceed at her own risk, since they knew that telling her no wouldn't do much to deter her.

The Shade must have been warned about her stubbornness at some point as he seemed resigned as well as annoyed. Yet, he still seemed determined in not giving into her and always fled before she could so much as open her mouth to deliver some sort of taunt, which only ensured the game continued on Anko's part. Perhaps he was hoping she'd grow tired of this silly little game eventually… Clearly, he was underestimating her determination and persistence, and she simply had to correct that erroneous assumption, didn't she?

It was all in good fun… until the one time she caught him off guard.

It was quite by coincidence that she saw him from afar, that Sunday morning. She started to go after him in her usual manner but stopped once she realized he wasn't alone. In fact, he had a kid with him. A kid anyone would recognize. A four years old kid that Haryi was currently in a swing with.

She watched as Haryi played with the blond and whiskered fox kid. She also noticed that the other people currently in the park were the sort that didn't hate the kid for what was sealed inside him. It seemed too picture-perfect not to be on purpose. This had clearly been planned.

This assumption was further confirmed when she noticed the older people in the part notice her and advising her not to try anything with their eyes.

Interesting.

It seemed that Haryi had a bunch of pretty powerful friends. That and he must also be pretty protective over the fox kid too, if she is reading his body language right. Unless he was actively trying to act like he loves the kid, he definitely is as easy to read as a goddamn audiobook in loudspeakers.

She waited until the kid got tired of the swings and rushed off to the slides, leaving Haryi alone to shunshin right behind him.

"Hey ther-" Before she could even finish the greeting, Haryi turned around faster than she had expected from him, whipping out a wooden stick then burst in red light with just a single foreign word. She barely had time to kawarimi with a log to escape whatever unknow consequences the red bolt might have had.

"Oh, It's you!" He said with a glare. "I've had enough! Stay the fuck away from me or I'll start attacking back!"

"Ooo. Touchy today, aren't you?" Anko commented with her usual smirk, seeing a muscle in his jaw twitching irritably at her tone, before adding innocently. "I just wanted to say 'hi'."

"Sure you did." He said, completely unimpressed. "Now get the bloody hell away from me!"

"Hmm… Nah. I quite like it here." She teased him, trying to see if he would fold and leave just to get away from her.

She was basically claiming this place as her territory just the same as he was, and if he left he would be conceding her victory. But if he stayed just out of stubbornness he would, in his mind, be putting the fox kid in danger. That was, at least, what she garnered from his character after spending so much time tracking him down.

They spent some time with their eyes locked, seeing who would give in first, only stopping when a timid voice rose up beside the older man's knee.

"Is the pwetty lady being mean to you, Ryi-nii?" The fox kid asked, large blue eyes fixed on his 'brother's' reaction.

"Yes, she is, Naru-chan." Haryi admitted, not at all ashamed.

"Oh weally?" The kid said with a suspicious glint in his eyes and a smirk that would have made a lesser shinobi shudder. Anko, of course, wasn't a lesser shinobi.

"Indeed." Haryi picked up the kid in his arms with such a natural gesture that they truly looked like family despite their physical differences claiming otherwise. "And you know what happens to meanies, right?"

Anko stood to attention, despite trying to remain outwardly impassive.

"I do." The brat said and both looked at her with evil grins in their faces.

Just as she was getting ready to dodge away from a potential attack, the brat jumped down from the man's arms and rushed away. "I'm just going to get weady. Wait for me Ryi-nii."

"Sure." Haryi replied with a gentle smile and Anko tried to follow the kid with her eyes, trying to guess what he was up to.

It turned out he was just saying goodbye to a few kids that he seemed to be in friendly terms with. She clearly saw one who just had to be the Nara heir at one point. She turned to look back at Haryi in case he tried anything, which he didn't. He just stood there with the same infuriating gentle smile on his face directed at the kid and ignoring her existence completely.

"Ok, I'm done now." The kid said upon his return. "Too bad Suke-kun couldn't be hewe today."

"It really is. But there's no one to bring him today. I hear his brother is busy with something." Haryi replied gently.

"No fair, Ita-nii also needs to play more!" The kid complained.

"I agree. But this won't stop us from trying to get him to play, won't it?"

"Yup!"

Haryi scooped the kip up from the floor once more and finally turned to Anko, who was seething on the inside at being so blatantly ignored, but keeping it from showing, not wanting to lose this new 'game' they were playing.

"Well, if you excuse us." He said, walking away towards the park entrance.

Anko felt a bit disappointed that he'd given up so easily. She'd expected for him to put up a fight.

"By the way." Haryi said suddenly and quite loudly just as he reached the entrance. "Nice hair cut." And with that he vanished.

Anko blushed a bit at the compliment until she stopped to think. Why would he be complimenting her now of all times. She looked at the other people in the park and they all seemed to be trying to hold their laughter. It was only when she saw her distorted reflection on a puddle that she realized what had really happened.

On her reflection, she could see that her hair had somehow been styled to look like she had snakes instead of hair, each with a pair of emerald green beads to serve as eyes.

Her scream in outrage became legendary.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I've been requested to pair up Harry and Anko. Initially I was all for it. I had asked if anyone wanted to pair someone up with him, after all and finally got a reply. Then a friend of mine told me that, despite previous incidents with snake bastards to bond over, Anko acts too similarly to Bellatrix for Harry to even be comfortable around her, which, while not completely right, does raise a good point. I almost decided against the pairing, but then I decided I wanted a challenge, instead of an easy romance.
> 
> Basically, Anko's crazy sadism will keep Harry away in the beginning because it reminds him of Bellatrix's. She'll try to play with him due to dango incident and then get really into it as she starts enjoying it. Harry is just as stubborn about not giving into her and inadvertently finds his marauder spirit as compromise.
> 
> In turn, this, along with his relationship with Naruto, with help drag Harry out of his depression. Harry was the first to tell the Wesley twins he could use some laughs considering the dark times approaching (after gobblet of fire) and what better way to get laughs than to prank a crazy bitch XP. It'll still be a long time before they get together, especially since Anko is still 17 in here, but slow and steady wins the race. Hope you enjoyed.

**Author's Note:**

> End Notes: Some people might consider me killing off Ron as an excuse to make more drama, but there's a reason why I did it. It'll be explained with a future chapter.


End file.
